










COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



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MEY WING 

A Romance if Cathay' 


Br 

REV. THOMAS W. HOUSTON 

»• 

Chaplain gf 

The Kansas State Penitentiary^ 
Lansing, Kansas 




Crane CS. Company, Publishers 
Topeka, Kansas 
1912 



Copyright 1912 
By Thomas W. Houston 



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CI.A300343 


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MEY WING 


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TABLE OF CONTENTS. 


Chapter I. The Story of Chao Ju 7 

II. San Dsi’s Thanksgiving 25 

III. The Mother Love 41 

IV. Met Wing and the Lady 58 

V. The Betrothal and the Disappearance 79 

VI. Christmas Joy and Sorrow 100 

VII. The Shadow of the Buddhist and the Beg- 
gar King 117 

VIII. The Riot and the Rescue 136 

IX. Li Si Huing Intercedes 154 

X. The End, Which Can Be Read 172 


(5) 



MEY WING: A ROMANCE OF CATHAY 


CHAPTER I. 

THE STORY OF CHAO JU. 

Chao Ju lived in Tong Dsing. Around on the other 
side of the planet, where up is down, they have some 
queer customs. One of these is that when a boy is 
born, the father announces the joyful news by sending 
out hundreds of many-colored eggs to his friends. So 
when Chao Ju was born, the eggs were sent out at the 
right time. The incense of thanksgiving was burnt 
in the temple of Kiang Yin, the Merciful goddess 
to whom the incense of prayer had been offered when 
the mother went to her shrine to ask for a boy. The 
barber was called in, with his outfit carried on a pole 
across his shoulders, and the hair was shaved, leaving 
the little bald cranium with all the bumps showing, and 
the life-beats pulsing across the soft spot. 

If any of you had gone to see the baby, you would 
have had to take a long journey. Take the steam-cars 
to San Francisco, and the steamboat to the Land of 
Long Ago. You must not stop to get more than a 
glimpse of the mountains and vales and lava trenches 
of the Sugar Islands. Carry with you a dreamy picture 
of Oahu, and hurry on, for while you are carried by 
( 7 ) 


8 


MET WING 


steam, and helped or hindered by wind and wave, the 
baby^s days are growing into weeks. The inviting 
glimpses of Dai Nippon must not tempt you to tarry, 
and the lights along the shore at Yokohama and Kobe 
and Nagasaki, that flash and flicker as your steamer 
swings at anchor through the night-watches, are 
beacons to guide you onward, for the baby’s first moon 
is changing into the second. When the boat ceases 
to throw up the green spray of the Japan waters, and 
cuts through the yellow tide which the Yang Tsi pours 
out to sea, you had better pack your steamer-trunk. 
There is no time to spend in Shanghai, if you are to be 
in at the second shaving of the baby’s head. Have 
your baggage transferred by a wheelbarrow-man to 
the river steamer, and sometime after midnight, with 
the turn of the tide, the sound of a strange chorus will 
arouse you, and with clanking of chains and jolting 
of clogs, the anchor comes slowly up, dripping muddy 
water, while the strange Chinese voices chant, “Lai 
ih, Lai er, Lai,* Lai,” and you float down into and 
steam up the steadily flowing current of the mighty 
river of China, the highway of an empire’s commerce. 

As the dawn of the second day comes breathing out 
of the ocean mist behind you, it meets the shore lights 
at Nanking. But you must wait to pass through the 
gates that bar the gloomy passage, piercing the gray 
old walls. The morning traffic will be blocking the 
streets, and before you reach the south gate, eight 
miles away, the passing caravans may cause hours of 


* “Come, once, twice. Come on.’ 


•IBE STOEY OF CHAO JXT 


9 


delay. Call a canal-boat. Ask of the laoban his 
number and pledge ; tell him to take your baggage to 
the ancestral home of the Gong clan. Tell him if he 
is prompt and gets everything there in good shape 
there will be wine cash in addition to the sum agreed 
upon as transportation fees. But the boat travel is 
slow and uncertain, and the baby waits for its first 
visit to the temple. You had better call donkeys. At 
your call a dozen boys will come dashing upon as many 
donkeys, and loudly urge the claims of their respective 
animals. While you ride, the boy will run behind, and 
you can reach Tong Dsing, ninety li (thirty miles) 
away, by evening. 

The house of Chao Ju’s father was built of adobe, 
and thatched with straw. The floor was of mud, dried 
and hardened by tramping of many feet, but it was 
swept carefully, and looked clean. The baby’s cradle 
was an old tub, and an old cotton comfort was his 
bed ; the old sweet light was in his eye, and his smile, 
and the old charm which has ever lingered about 
babies, held those around his tub just as it holds those 
who gather around costly cradles and silken curtains, 
and to him also, 

“Mother's smiles were baby's skies.” 

Generally the smiles were plentiful, and the rice suf- 
ficient, for her husband was industrious. The three 
hens laid their eggs in the basket that lay beside the 
baby’s tub, and the baby crowed with pleasure when 
they cackled with pride over their daily feat. His 


10 


MEY WING 


almond eyes grew nearly round when he was puzzled 
or startled by the grunts that came through the thin 
walls behind him, but when he was older and was 
carried around where he could see the pigs, he squealed 
as naturally as they did. The awkward, hump-backed, 
long-haired calf of the water buffalo that drew his 
father^s plow grew faster than he did, but it remained 
stupid and awkward, while the baby grew into a 
bright, merry boy, taking his place as lord over the 
animals that had been his playmates. 

But there was a serious thoughtfulness about his 
eyes that also distinguished him from the unwinking 
placidity of the two-year-old buffalo. For changes had 
come into his home. His mother and father had taken 
him to the temple, and folded his baby hands deco- 
rously, while they were bowing and kneeling before 
the images in the temple of Buddha, and before the 
cabalistic characters that promised long life and riches 
and many children. 

And this mother, too, dreamed her dreams, but told 
them to no one; dreamed of the mystery of the life 
she saw developing in her little one ; dreamed of the 
misty future when he should grow tall and straight- 
limbed and strong-armed ; of the school days and the 
scholar's robes; of the examinations and prizes and 
degrees conferred by the applauding judges ; of the 
time when her days would be crowned by the laurels 
he would wear ; when she would be nourished by the 
love of her successful son; when her name would be 
written as the mother of this great one whose baby- 


THE STOEY OF CHAO JU 


11 


steps her arms had steadied and who had been trained 
in studious habits by her wise care. 

But the dreaming hours grew shorter, and the smiles 
less frequent when the fever from the flooded rice-fields 
entered into her husband^s blood. As his strength 
waned, she tried to take his place in the field until 
she, too, felt the clinging of the dreaded malaria. In 
the morning as she led the buffalo to pasture, she 
would take some rice cakes to lay before the gilded 
mud image of the god of the field and plain, in his 
earthen shrine on a corner of their field. In the even- 
ings she carefully trimmed and lighted the red candles 
before the tiny household guardian that sat in his 
niche in the corner of the kitchen, over her cooking- 
place. They were not rich enough to build a blank, 
high wall in front of their door to deceive the evil 
spirits into the thought that no one lived there, but 
she did the best she could, and fastened a paper screen 
in that place. The spirits of the air, she was sure, 
were outwitted in this way, for they moved in straight 
lines; but the spirit foxes could turn and twist. It 
was evident to her that one of these cunning ones had 
already bewitched her husband, for he would grow cold 
and hot by turns. At times he would shake and 
tremble as the witching one frightened him ; then the 
fever would burn, and he would talk to this one who 
was luring his spirit to join in their spirit life. She 
sold one of the pigs to get money with which she hired 
a band of yellow-gowned priests to exorcise the evil. 
They filled the little house, set up their tablets and 


12 


MEY WING 


shrines, fastened up their ancient formulas which no 
one could read, burned their incense and candles, 
causing tears to run down the baby’s fat cheeks and 
nearly strangling the sick man; beat their gongs, 
chanted their weird rhymes in an unknown jargon, and 
after some hours departed, proving the success of their 
undertaking by the odor of burnt fox-hair behind them, 
driving before them all evil tormenters, and carrying 
with them the price of the pig. 

But that night she knew that the fox had returned, 
and was sitting on the chest of her husband. He com- 
plained of the weight, and in her agony of heart she 
tried to push it off. When her hands swept, unre- 
sisted, through emptiness, and he still moaned under 
the increasing weight, bitterness of soul came upon 
her. She realized she had lost the battle and her 
husband. She covered her face with her coat, and 
cried out the death-call. Others came in and joined 
her, but she noticed them not. The light went out 
of her husband’s eyes and her baby was fatherless. 

So mother’s tears made Chao Ju’s cloudy days, and 
his face grew thoughtful and questioning from much 
study of hers. She took up her burdens bravely. Her 
home was in one end of the house occupied by her 
husband’s kindred. His brothers tilled her fields, and 
she sewed and cooked and washed for them. The 
old father and mother directed all. 

Great mother,” she would say sometimes, ^^why 
did the Illustrious One let the cunning ones take my 
head from me?” ^^Ah, wife of my son,” the old 


THE STORY OF CHAO JU 


13 


woman would say, have never read the books of 
the Wise Ones. How can I answer? But the fox 
runs not without the consent of the Superior Ones. 
Heaven willed it, and the destiny of man is bound in 
the web controlled by the Ten Thousand Great Ones.’^ 

There was little in this to comfort the widow, and 
once she ventured to question the old farmer : 

^^Grandfather, why did heaven desire your son, who 
would have cared for you in old age?^’ ^^Did not the 
Great Master, even Confucius, say, foolish one, that 
since we know not all of earth we need not seek to know 
heaven? Take care of the little one and keep your 
house clean, and trouble not your mind with matters 
which concern not women. 

Si Jing, the oldest brother, had a tailor shop in the 
neighboring town, Tong Dsing. He was one of the 
town elders, and a member of the lay council that 
controlled the temple affairs. He was a rigorous 
ritualist, and exacted from the members of his own 
family that they should observe the days and cere- 
monies of worship faithfully. Under his guidance Chao 
Ju learned early to religiously go through the exercises 
required, and to speak in awed tones of the countless 
gods that filled the air above his head. His mother, 
too, told him of the cunning fox spirits who had coaxed 
his father away, and gave him a charm to keep them 
off. This was always tied to a string around his neck. 

But if he was a somewhat serious child, he was a 
healthy boy, and these things did not hinder him from 
enjoying a boy^s games and playthings. He gathered 


14 


MET WING 


the singing crickets, and fed them in little pens made 
of bamboo slips. He watched the elder boys fly kites, 
and ran with his own papers. He practiced for hours 
to see how often he could kick a cloth-covered coin 
into the air without letting it fall to the ground. 
Through most of the year his daily task was to take 
care of the lumbering water buffalo when it was not 
working. When he wished to take it out, he would go 
to where it was eating and clamber over its great head 
and immense horns, up its wrinkled neck, and perch 
on its broad back, with a long switch in his hand. 
Guiding it with this stick, he would drive it to some 
grassy spot, and sit or lie on its back for hours while 
it browsed. Sometimes he would slip off while the 
brute would go to a deep pond, and drink and wallow 
in the water with only its head visible. Often, though, 
he would drive it into the deepest water, and remain 
on it while it would swim around till he permitted it 
to go out. If he got wet, his one or two cotton gar- 
ments did not suffer, and he did not seem to mind it. 

The days when his head was entirely shaved had 
ended. The age of the half-moon tonsure passed, too, 
and lately a round patch of hair around the crown was 
allowed to grow long, and was tied with a red cord. 
Still he had not commenced his student ^s course. His 
mother was not able to pay the fees of the village 
schoolmaster. She knew nothing of letters, and could 
not help him. His uncles had cares of their own, so 
the boy^s cue was quite thick and long, and he still 


THE STORY OF CHAO JU 


15 


kicked his coin, and watched the buffalo while it fed. 
But he was disturbed by his lack of schooling. 

Mamma, can I go to school next feast he would 
ask. 

'^The rice crop was not good this year, my jewel, and 
the taxes are due. Our head men have gone to pe- 
tition the magistrate to remit a part of our payment 
this fall, but my heart is not hopeful. Our new magis- 
trate has come with an empty pocket and I fear it 
must be filled.” 

Before my next birthday I will have passed eight 
New Years, and I know no characters.” 

‘‘1 am very sorry there is no way. Let us pray the 
gods to grant us good crops next season. Then you 
can commence.” 

But when he was ten, his hope was still unfulfilled. 
His mother went into Nanking to spend a few days 
with the uncle of her husband^s sister^s half-niece. 
There was to be a wedding in the house, and Gong Sau- 
Dse was wanted to assist in the preparations. While 
they worked, tongues wagged noisily, and visiting pro- 
ceeded industriously. The presents for the bride were 
brought in for inspection. The embroidered garments 
and silver ornaments were unusually good and numer- 
ous for people in their rank, and Gong Sau-Dse re- 
marked on this to another distant relative, who was 
in for the festal days. 

^^Our fortunate relative seems to be planning to keep 
the lilies* of his happy one from all touch with the 
ground.” 


* Boundjeet. 


16 


MEY WING 


Yes, the wolf will not seek her as long as the foreign 
devils continue their contributions/^ 

stupid one listens! My elder sister speaks in 
riddles/’ 

^^What is it my dull lips have failed to make plain 
to my honored friend?” 

Your younger sister has had bitterness enough from 
long acquaintance with evil spirits of our own country. 
Whence is it that devils from outside the eighteen 
provinces bring happiness to others?” 

^^Has no word come to your lucky abode of the 
crafty ones who make their dwelling in human forms 
that come from over the sea?” 

^^Our poor place hears little from the great world.” 
indeed am from a mean village and can give little 
reliable information. But the son of my sister’s 
younger brother-in-law brought his peanuts to market 
one day, and heard of them. He failed to see them, 
but while his donkey was resting, he went to a tea- 
house to rest a rest. There he met a peddler who gave 
him direct word of them. He had passed the square 
house where they work their charms, and as he was a 
fellow-countryman he willingly told what he had 
learned.” 

‘^Ah, that was fortunate! You never can trust' to 
what strangers tell you.” 

'^Yes, so I am sure of the matter. The wall was 
high and the gate closed, but there was a hole in it 
through which he could see, and he was so astonished 
at what he saw that he forgot to call his wares for half 


THE STORY OF CHAO JU 


17 


a day. The only one of them that he saw was a little 
one. It must have been a boy, for there were no 
bandages on its feet. Instead of walking sedately, it 
was jumping and skipping like a frog whose pond has 
dried up. And its hair was not black like the sons of 
Han, nor smooth in proper braids, but wriggled over 
its head like the yellow feathers on that hen out there 
that was hatched on a rainy day and never got dry 
till the curl was fixed in its plumage.’^ 

Wonderful, wonderful 

'^Well, you may say so! But, still more marvelous 
to hear, its skin was paler than that of a fortunate 
woman, whom the sun has never burned, when she 
lies in her shroud, and it had eyes the color of that 
blue coat you have on, and light jumped from them so, 
that once it looked right through him. Indeed, his 
head has been light ever since, though he came away 
at once.^^ 

Marvelous! My ears tingle with listening. But 
enlighten my dull heart, elder sister! What benefit 
has our kinsman from such beings?’^ 

^‘Well, strange things take place these days. My 
eldest son was frightened dead last moon by seeing a 
fox ride our cow one moonlight night, but I have felt 
safer ever since, for he never ventures out after dark 
now. But these strange creatures — the affair stands 
this way. For some unaccountable reason they de- 
sired to open a school in this vicinity, but no one would 
rent them a building.’^ 

Naturally enough, surely. Such as you describe 


18 


MEY WING 


are certain to have some sinister thought, and who 
wants to be responsible for harboring heretical teach- 
ings?^^ 

^^True words! But our kinsman has long been sus- 
pected of neglecting the teachings of the ancients. 
Besides, he had an old place that had long been unoc- 
cupied. The last tenant was a fortune-teller, who 
failed to offer the proper sacrifices to his familiar, and 
when he moved the spirit was angry and did not ac- 
company him, and he has frightened everyone else 
away. Indeed, one man moved in, though the neigh- 
bors warned him. But the second night the spirit 
poisoned the rain that fell through a broken tile to the 
child^s bed, and she died of heat in a few days. So four 
feasts have passed and the spirits have put the marks 
of their mouldy wings over the holy characters our 
kinsman pasted up. Is it not a good play to put the 
foreign devils to match these evil ones of our own 
heretical people, and see which will turn tail first? 
In the mean time, golden lilies may wear satin, for 
the foreigners have paid a thousand strings of cash 
for a yearns lease. 

It was Chao Ju’s first visit to the city, and many 
things were marvelous to him ; so the conversation did 
not strike him as bearing on any matter especially 
strange. But when a school was mentioned, his ears 
opened wide. For the desire to know something had 
grown in him until it was an overmastering longing. 
He had given his mother and uncles no peace in his 
pleading for school privileges, until they were almost 


THE STORY OF CHAO JU 


19 


ready to make the necessary sacrifices, to have quiet 
from his importunity. But Si Jing had lately moved 
to the city and opened a shop, and the expenses of the 
move and the difficulty in getting trade among so many 
competitors made it necessary for him to draw on the 
family for help, and no money could be spared for 
schooling. 

Chao Ju determined that he would see this strange 
school. He slipped out quietly, and ran down the 
street to where he had heard that the place was located. 
There was a gate, but by standing on tiptoe he could 
look through a small opening. He took hold of the 
lock-bar to raise himself up, when unexpectedly the 
gate was pushed open, and he fell inward. He could 
hear the hum of studying inside the room next the 
gate, and while he was somewhat frightened, curiosity 
was strong, and before he got away a teacher came out 
of the door to see the cause of the noise. As Chao Ju 
saw that he was an ordinary Chinaman with a kindly 
face, his desire overcame his fright, and he responded, 
in backward, country manner, to the inquiries. He 
was led on by the sympathetic old pedagogue until 
he had told all about his own longings and the inability 
of the family to pay the fees. The teacher kindly 
expressed the wish that he might have so bright a lad 
in his school, and the boy forgot all. about its reputed 
connection with the strange newcomers. It was late 
and about time for school to be dismissed, so the 
teacher asked him to come again on the next day, if he 
had time; and went back into the school. 


20 


MEY WING 


As Chao Ju walked away, some of the pupils over- 
took him. One of them lived near where he was stay- 
ing, and had played with him on the preceding day. 
From him Chao Ju learned that the school was a free 
one. He had heard before of schools established by 
charitable people for the advantage of poor children, 
and many a time he had lamented that he did not live 
near one. Here was his opportunity. Impetuously he 
besieged his mother, jumbling his discovery and argu- 
ments and pleadings so that she could not understand 
more than half he said. She gathered that there was a 
free school near, where he wished to go for the few days 
they were to be in the city. And since she was busy 
and this would take him out of the way and put him 
in good hands, she yielded easily. 

On the next morning, when for the first time the boy 
entered a schoolroom as a pupil, his little heart was so 
full of struggling emotions, exultation and fear, ecstacy 
and shame for his ignorance, hope and despair, that 
he struggled with an inclination to either laugh out, or 
cry, and, suppressing both, wore such a meaningless 
mask that the teacher doubted whether he were as 
bright as he had seemed the day before. But the 
hunger with which he seized upon the characters, and 
bolted the teacher’s suggestions, left no question as to 
his making a scholar. For a few days he thought of 
nothing else, as a few of the mysterious characters 
came to be alive with intelligence to him. 

Then the dread of going away took hold of him, and, 
as the day came near, his face was so troubled at times 


'THE STORY OF CHAO JH 


2i 


that the teacher drew from him his fears. Chao Ju 
had learned, mean time, that certain of the scholars 
lived in the building, and that some who were unable 
to pay, even received boarding without paying for it. 
He did not ask why this was, but simply laid hold on it 
as a golden opportunity by which he must profit. 

But he did not know how to speak to his mother on 
the subject. When he did, she was inclined at first to 
laugh at him. But the boy’s persistence and tears and 
stormings finally carried the day. Even after they 
learned that the school was under the control of the 
foreigners, the mother and Si Jing, the uncle, finally 
consented. After all was said, the school was taught 
by an old Chinese scholar of some little reputation as a 
benevolent man. The sacred Confucian characters 
were studied. They could not see how the boy could 
be hurt. Even if these queer strangers did desire to 
lay up credit with their gods by thus helping children 
of the Middle Kingdom, their boy would be kept, free 
of cost to themselves, until he was old enough to enter 
his uncle’s shop as an apprentice. Perhaps the mother 
recalled her dreams of the time when he lary in her arms 
and her husband was hulling the rice just in the next 
room. 

At any rate, the boy remained. He was taught to 
recognize and pronounce characters which the teacher 
wrote for him on slips of red paper. After a time, he 
took the brush into his own hands and attempted to 
write. Then he committed the three-character classic, 
and a catechism of Christian truth. Next he took up 


22 


MEY WING 


the Confucian Analects, and copies of the Gospels 
of Matthew and Mark in mandarin dialect. The 
countless spirits which had peopled the air of his 
country life gradually receded, and in their place came 
a new idea, that of a vast, mysterious, overshadowing 
one, brighter than the sun in his noonday shining, and 
more terrible than the army with its banners that 
sometimes tramped past the schoolhouse door and 
frightened him with the awful insignia of power and 
death. 

There was a pane of window-glass set in the roof 
over his head, which admitted light to the low room. 
He had been accustomed only to windows made of 
oiled paper. This light seemed startingly clear. And 
the feeling grew on him that the eye of the Great One 
was looking through that glass, searching out his very 
thoughts and taking cognizance of his every move. 
He came to fear it, but did not tell his thoughts to 
any one. He changed his seat from directly under it 
to the east side of the room, but every afternoon be- 
tween three and four o^clock, when the restlessness of 
the closing hours would fill the room, the eye would 
reach him again, and the same indefinable dread would 
come over him. He made no further attempt to evade 
it, but gave himself up to its searching, first with 
trembling apprehension; then, as the days became 
moons, the presence became to him in some sense a 
comfort. For he was removed from all his kindred, 
and he did not remember his father’s face. The 
teacher was kind to him, and the other boys were 


THE STOIlY OE CHAO JU 


23 


friendly as boys go. He had grown accustomed to the 
strange dress and appearance of the bearded foreigner 
and his sweet-voiced wife, who came occasionally to 
examine the school and speak about the One who loved 
them all. But he did not understand them very well, 
though he liked the oranges the bright-faced lady some- 
times laid on his desk as she patted his partly shaven 
head. 

Still, after a year had passed, that eye gave him more 
sense of being personally cared for than any other of 
his surroundings. He was making good progress in 
his books, and when he was twelve he was given the 
Gospel of Luke to commit. One day he read of how 
the wonderful Boy went up to Jersualem when He was 
twelve years old, and entering the temple became so 
absorbed in discussion of the precious old text-books 
of His school life, that He failed to heed the passing 
of the time until His friends had left Him; how He 
remained there until they returned seeking Him, and 
how He answered them, ^^Wist ye not that I must be 
about my Father ^s business?’^ 

A lonesome, longing wave flowed through his veins. 
He had no father whose business he might attend to. 
No one came seeking after him. The afternoon was 
passing. The teacher was hearing a boy recite. The 
other boys were variously engaged. He was alone, 
though others were all around him. He laid his fore- 
head upon his arm on the table in front of him, and 
thought of the Boy. Who was the Father of whom He 
spoke? It could not be Joseph, for the carpenter, 


24 


MEY WING 


though a good man, found no place in the great temple. 
Chao Ju had daily repeated with the school, ^^Our 
Father,’^ but that was to an indefinite Someone whom 
he did not know, and it did not recur to him now. But 
while tears of one who was lost fell on his desk, the 
Eye came searching after him. Its companionship 
comforted him. At first he received it passively, till 
suddenly another thought-wave went over him that 
this was his Father^s eye. His heart warmed with the 
love that filled it, and he straightened up, saying, 
too, must be about my Father^s business.’^ 


CHAPTER II. 

SAN DSI’S THANKSGIVING. 

Wu Wan Fuh was his name, and that meant that 
his coming had brought ten thousand happinesses into 
his father’s home. But San Dsi was what he was 
always called, and that was because he was the third 
son. No account was made of any number of sisters 
who may have preceded him. His other name, given 
him by the teacher of the school where he learned 
a few characters when he was too small to earn wages, 
was forgotten in these later days. The father was 
known as Wu Chuei Dsi, because when a boy, as he was 
bathing in a pond near his village, he had unwittingly 
disturbed the water dragon that resided there, and 
had suffered ever since from a charm woven from the 
dragon’s wrath. He did not at first realize what had 
happened, but came out of the water chilled and 
numbed. Severe pains appeared in the limb soon 
after, and it gradually became twisted and shrunken, 
and he was called ^^Wu The Lame.” 

But we did not know of these things until San Dsi was 
about twelve years old. I had occasion to go out 
beyond the Water West Gate one day, and sent for a 
donkey. It came saddled and bridled and belled, 
with the usual accompaniment of a donkey-boy. To 
the uninitiated the word ^^boy” may be misleading, 
( 25 ) 


26 


MEY WING 


for the person so called might be a weazened-up, gray- 
haired old man. But in this case it was a boy, so 
diminutive that I was disposed to question his ability 
to attend the animal. 

am in a hurry to-day, little one, and fear you can- 
not run as fast as I wish to go. You had better stay 
here till I come back. I can manage the donkey. 

Never fear, honored sir; I’ve followed the beast a 
thousand li* this moon, and my legs are as tough as 
his,” he protested. 

So he trotted along beside the stirrup, or ran for- 
ward to lead the donkey over the slippery canal 
bridges, or guide him through the intricacies of the 
narrow, crowded streets, or advised short cuts to avoid 
the more public thoroughfares, where progress would 
be slower. 

I was visiting a sick pupil and taking him some 
medicine. The boy had been in our school for some 
time and received the help gratefully, but the relatives 
were suspicious of foreigners and doses. A native 
professor of healing had been called in, and, finding 
internal disorders, proceeded to administer a counter- 
irritant, by pinching the skin until his neck and 
shoulders were checkered by spots of dark discoloration. 
San Dsi listened closely while I protested against such 
treatment and advised with the family. As we re- 
turned he started the donkey briskly from the door to 
show the animal’s style and to prove the importance 
of his patron’s time, but when we reached a quiet 


* One-third of a mile. 


SAN DSI S thanksgiving 


27 


suburban road, with a wild-rose hedge on one side and 
a mud wall on the other, he ceased the urging and 
walked with his hand at the bit. 

Presently he said, ^^The teacher gave the sick boy 
some pills.’’ 

I was always glad, when I had time, to encourage 
such urchins to talk, for in that way many queer ideas 
would come out that an older Chinaman would have 
concealed. But San Dsi was not talking for enter- 
tainment that morning. He had a purpose. Not 
knowing his motive, I assented briefly. He guided the 
donkey through a splashy pool, from which the skim 
of ice of the night before was melting. His bare feet 
took ice or water or stones all alike, and if he felt any 
discomfort he did not show it. His conversation took 
a tack. 

Where is the teacher’s honorable home?” 

^^Did you not see my little ones when we started 
this morning?” 

Truly! Great joy abides in your house.” 

At another time he would have followed this line 
until he had learned of all my family connections, but 
then he was wanting to get back to the main course. 

But the teacher is not a citizen of our mean country. 
He has illustrious parents?” 

^^Yes.” 

^^What country is honored by their presence?” 

^^They live in America.” 

^^Ah, you people that live under the Great Starry 
Banner are clever.” 


28 


MEY WING 


I modestly kept silence. The little fellow had 
learned early the polite labyrinth of roundabout ap- 
proaches to the desired point. I wondered what he 
had in mind, and let the reins hang loose. The boy 
still walked ahead, and the short cue dangled over his 
blue cotton coat. It was tied with white cord. He 
was wearing mourning. He turned partly around. 

^^Your physicians are wonderful men. They have 
studied all diseases.’^ 

He was evidently steering straight again. I made 
no response, but unwisely allowed a smile to be in- 
terpreted as an assent to medical infallibility. He 
turned squarely. 

There are no sick where there are such physicians. 

I could not allow that to pass unrefuted. 

^^Oh, yes,’^ I admitted, ^^we have some sick.” 

He ruminated over this for a time, and then con- 
cluded: Certainly! The wonderful doctors must 

have some practice or they could not maintain their 
marvelous skill. But what joy it would be to live 
where men do not have to die.” 

Mentally connecting this with the white cord in his 
cue, I resolved to do some questioning myself. First, 
though, I somewhat undeceived him as to the extent 
of our medical abilities. Then by questioning I drew 
from him that he had been in our parts but a few days. 
His home had been in the north. His father was a 
peddler, who carried his little stock of cloth and thread 
and needles from town to town and house to house. He 
was lame, and the loads were often heavy. But he 


SAN DSI^S THANKSGIVING 


29 


was faithful and patient, and the needs of his growing 
family urged him on. San Dsi had two brothers and 
three sisters. They generally had enough to eat, and 
if their wadded garments were not sufficient for the 
needs of all, those who must go out in their cold 
northern winters wore them, and the others huddled 
over the adobe kang, through which the smoke and 
heated air from the cooking-place passed in exit. 

But the children of Han who dwelt along the shores 
of the River of Sorrows* neglected the sacrifices to 
the god of the river. In his anger he swelled himself 
to immense dimensions and lay athwart the river until 
the waters rose, and, bursting the dikes, rushed over 
the surrounding fields, carrying with them disease, 
distress and death. 

The Wus were not directly affected by this, as they 
did not farm, and their village was some distance from 
the river. Still, living was much more expensive, and 
the father had to spend more hours on the road. He 
might not stop for rainy or cold days. As the winter 
wore on the pain in his limb grew worse, until at times 
he was unable to go out. The famine region spread. 
With it traveled the plague god, and many who were 
weak with hunger died stricken by the latter. San 
Dsi^s two older brothers, to whom the father had 
looked for assistance in the near future, were put in 
their coffins and carried out to the pauperis lot. Money 
was too scarce to admit of their buying burial-ground. 
Then a family council was held. It was evident that 


Huang Ho. 


30 


MEY WING 


their old enemy, the pond dragon, was not forgetting 
his anger. As long as they lived in that vicinity they 
could hope for no relief. They must move away. 
Their wadded clothes were nearly gone. In the south 
the warm-blooded dragons breathed gentler air over the 
earth. The plan was agreed on. The father must go 
ahead to spy out a place. The eldest child, a girl 
nearly grown, was to become the second wife of an 
official. Part of the amount received at her betrothal 
went to her outfit. The net proceeds were invested 
in goods to be sold on his journey. The others were 
expected to manage for themselves in some way until 
he sent for them. So one morning the lame man 
shouldered his carrying-stick and faced southward, and 
his family had not seen him since. They managed to 
shift through the spring and summer. But when 
winter drew near again the outlook was gloomy. 
Finally they, too, had come south, mortgaging the old 
home for a little with which to pay off debts and buy a 
donkey to carry a few pitiful household necessaries. 
The mother and San Dsi walked all the way, and the 
two little girls, whose feet were still living and tender, 
alternately rode and walked. They had taken refuge 
in a mat-shed among the other northern refugees just 
outside the city walls, supported precariously by the 
earnings of San Dsi and the donkey. 

The lad told the story very simply. If it was 
pathetic it was only because the bare facts made it so. 
He did not seem to realize it, nor seek to embellish it 
with particulars. But in view of the sturdy little 


SAN DSI^S THANKSGIVING 


31 


back under its misfit coat, and the firm little hand 
guiding the animal through the crowded streets to 
which we had come, and the meagre, dirty, white cord 
in his hair, a respect grew for one who, as a child, had 
already learned the bitterness of life, and had assumed 
its burdens without complaining. 

The next day I rode under his guidance again, and 
when the day’s round was completed he piloted me to 
the piece of coarse matting under which their rice-pot 
was set on three stones. The two little girls sat out- 
side to get whatever heat the sun would afford while 
it lasted. The mother half lay on a quilt near the 
fire, where she could watch the few coals while she 
sewed on some shoe soles. She did not rise, but looked 
stolidly ahead while San Dsi explained what he had not 
spoken of before, that she was sick and her feet, mere 
stumps wrapped in old cloths, had become worn and in- 
flamed with the long tramp, until she was unable to 
stand. A man may not speak of a woman’s feet in 
the ancient kingdom, so nothing could be learned as 
to the extent of the injuries, but the lines of suffering 
and throbbing of fever could be seen in the ill-nourished 
face and neck. The winter twilight was closing. A 
chill was creeping through the damp air. One thin 
quilt must cover the mother and two girls. San Dsi 
must curl up in his clothes. The misery of it all was 
overwhelming. 

^^San Dsi,” I said, “are you afraid of us foreigners?” 

“No.” 

“Well, then, do as I say. There is a great hospital 


32 


MEY WING 


near my home. If your mother will go there she will 
have medical treatment and food and medicine, and 
she will soon be all right. If she stays here, who can 
assure her life?^’ 

The woman was ready for anything, and in a short 
time the few belongings were intrusted to the occupant 
of the next shed (who disappeared the next day) ; the 
woman was placed astride the donkey. The boy led 
it and the girls followed. Though it was dark before 
the procession reached the hospital, the woman was 
made comfortable and the boy and girls were given 
shelter for the night by a native attendant. 

The following day was Thanksgiving. Though in a 
far country, our hearts remembered Zion, and we ob- 
served national occasions and home customs with 
jealous love. In the morning Mrs. Wu was found to 
be resting in greater comfort than she had known for 
weeks. She had been given a bath and was in clean 
clothing, on a clean bed. With skillful dressing of her 
feet the pain was allayed. Fever was gone. Good 
food and hope had nearly completed a cure, but she 
would have to keep quiet for some days. When she 
saw me she exclaimed : 

^'0 sir, this is heaven! I keep thinking I am still 
making a dream. Truly, the merciful goddess has re- 
membered me.^^ 

I did not stop then to instruct her in theology, as I 
had many steps to take, but expressed pleasure at her 
improvement. She inquired for the children, and was 
told that they were being cared for. Then she sighed, 


SAN DSI^S THANKSGIVING 


33 


my husband were alive now I could enjoy this 
happiness.’^ 

I hurried on my way, and, after attending a service 
held by our little group of foreigners, enjoyed a Thanks- 
giving dinner, in which Chinese pheasants took the 
place of the American turkey. We lingered at the 
table for the sake of ^^Auld lang syne.^’ Afterwards 
two newly arrived young men and myself started for 
an afternoon outing over Dsi Jing Shan, the Purple 
Mountain. Our way led us for four miles through the 
city to the East gate, outside of which we turned 
aside from the road and began the ascent. We rode thus 
far. The younger men had horses, but I had the 
donkey and San Dsi. We left the animals on the 
slope. Giving directions that they should meet us 
several miles farther on, at the foot of another path, we 
started for a tramp over the crest. The day, the free- 
dom from routine, the dinner, the good-fellowship, the 
sunlight and bracing air, all put us in good fettle, and 
we took the rise at a rapid pace. 

The trench occupied by the Tai Ping rebels when they 
besieged the city was passed. A sharp climb brought 
us to the crown of the first eminence, where the ruins 
of an ancient rock fortress were viewed, from which we 
looked back over the great city to the noble river be- 
yond, flowing to the sea. Then we went on along the 
ridge of the hills, following a downward bend, then 
abruptly upward for a mile till we reached a Buddhist 
temple, plastered on the outside and yellowed with 
ochre. The priest in charge soon had tea set out for 


34 


MEY WING 


our refreshment. In a few moments we started for- 
ward, heading for the highest point, half a mile farther 
on. On either hand the mountain-side sloped rapidly 
downward to populous villages, and the roads running 
from the city through each line of villages looked like 
yellow strings connecting them. An occasional traveler 
seemed to be crawling, beetle-like, along these strings. 
Little brown and green lizards, darting among the 
rocks over which we made our way, were the only mov- 
ing things near us, and no sound reached us from below. 
Our own voices rang out strangely distinct in the 
silence. Suddenly, as we rounded a jagged corner, we 
were startled by another sound, a groan of some one in 
pain. We could see no one, but the sounds seemed to 
come from the rocks at one side. Then I made out the 
words, Water, water, repeated in indistinct tones. 
Some one was suffering up there, no matter how im- 
probable it might seem. A few steps brought me to 
where the sounds issued from a crevice. Pushing aside 
a heavy stone, evidently placed there to serve as a 
door, an irregular niche was discovered, in which was 
lying a man, weak and emaciated. 

^^What do you want?’^ I called to him. 

He answered by again groaning for water. There 
was none nearer than the temple we had passed, so I 
went back and brought some in a bowl. He was lying, 
when I got back, as when first seen, his eyes closed, his 
lips parted, parched and swollen. A small dose of 
water revived him, and soon he sat up and began to 
talk. 


SAN DSI^S THANKSGIVING 


35 


^^Who are you?^’ I then asked him. 
seeker after happiness/^ he replied. 

Truly a good aim/^ I said. ^^But by what road 
does my elder brother seek to travel?’’ 

^^By the road of the myriad joys, through the gate- 
way of the thousand purifications, even the path 
marked out by our great Lord Buddha, the Illustrious 
Prince of the Shining Way.” 

The words were such strange ones to come from this 
sick, unlettered peasant, that I paused before speaking 
again. The impression on my mind had been that 
he was a fugitive hiding on account of some crime. 
He was muttering, ^^0 mi to fu, O mi to fu,” the 
charmed sounds by which the devout appeal to Prince 
Sagyimuni, whom one-third of the world worship as 
the Lord Buddha who has led the way to Nirvana. 

^^My brother is sick and weak. Will he have some 
food?” I asked. 

He raised his head and observed me closely. The 
dim light of the recess showed him dress, features and 
complexion such as he had never seen. 

^^Who are you?” he asked wonderingly. 
friend who wants to help you.” 

^‘Do you know the way?” he asked eagerly. 

With great joy I answered : Yes, I know the way. 
If my brother will tell me of the way he has come, I 
will lead him to the gates of Eternal Life.” 

He was very weak, and spoke with difficulty. We 
gave him a sup of water and looked around for some 
food, but he shook his head and motioned me to sit 


36 


MEY WING 


down near him. We feared he was hardly able to 
talk, but his eyes were eager and he began slowly. 

^^The road has been long and hard, its resting-places 
few, and many weary steps have led me back again to 
my starting-point. I am a sinner. In my youth I 
offended the spirits, and have always carried the 
burden of it in my flesh and on my heart. As he 
spoke, a motion of his hand led my eyes to his leg, 
which I noticed was shrunken and misshapen. He 
went on: “My family has suffered with me. Two 
are not, and I know not how it is with the others. 
The road led me from them, and for seven moons I 
have wandered, lonely and hungry, seeking a resting- 
place. The ten thousand Holy Ones had not decreed 
peace for me. The spell of the dragon clung to my 
leg till it became as lead and dragged at my vitals. 
When I reached the foot of this mountain, the Shining 
Way appeared in a night dream. With my hands I 
lifted my dead foot up the thousand steps, and found 
this niche in which to lay the weary body. For thirty 
days I have not tasted food. The water which I 
brought up lasted until yesterday. The days of my 
purifying are nearly over. I hunger no more. My 
three spirits will soon go to their appointed places. My 
family have long mourned me as departed. But my 
sins are still heavy upon my heart. The dragon clings 
to my leg. I fear he will drag down my spirit to his 
realms. My eyes grow dim, and I am stupid. I see 
not yet the way. Now if you are sent from the Holy 
Ones to tell me the way, a sinful httle one listens.’’ 


SAN DSI^S THANKSGIVING 


37 


We had heard of discouraged, despairing men who 
sought by fasting and meditation in solitude to clarify 
their vision of things unseen by the eye, and to placate 
vengeful spiritual enemies. This was one. We re- 
vived him with another cup of water, and would have 
hastened after food, but feared he would not take it. 
Then with great eagerness I sought to make plain to 
his dark and weakened mind the story of Him who is 
the Way, the Truth and the Life. He lay with closed 
eyes. At times I feared he was not listening, but when 
I paused, he whispered, ^^Go on.^’ I spoke simply 
and briefly as possible, as to a little child,’’ and added : 

^^The Saviour who sent me to you, my brother, is 
the Way. He will carry you through. He does not 
demand more fasting and suffering. He may have 
work for you to do for Him. You have found the 
Way. Now get strong to walk in it. Shall I bring 
you some food?” 

I do not think he had any desire for food, but cir- 
cumstances had led him to accept my guidance. I ran 
to the temple, and soon had a little rice gruel, which he 
took with some difficulty. 

Without saying anything to him about what was to 
be done, I ran down the mountain path to where San 
Dsi was waiting, and rode over to a village, where men 
were secured to carry the sick man. When we re- 
turned the sun was setting. The man looked up 
passively as we reached him, questioning with his 
eyes. 

^^My friend, you cannot get strong here. These 


38 


MEY WING 


men are to carry you into the city, where you can be 
cared for/^ 

It was a new experience for him, this being cared 
for. His life had been a struggle against the tide. 
He was too weak to resist, if he had cared to, and he 
silently allowed himself to be borne down the mountain- 
side. It was quite dark when we reached the spot 
where our animals awaited us. We gave directions 
as to where he should be taken, and hurried on ahead 
to relieve the anxiety of our friends over our absence, 
and to prepare for his coming. Hastening to the 
hospital, we asked to have him received that night, and 
helped to make arrangements. 

While waiting for the men to arrive, I went into the 
women^s ward to speak to Mrs. Wu. She was sitting 
up, talking to the two girls, who had been allowed to 
go in for a while before bedtime. She looked up 
brightly, the stolidity all gone from her face. 

^^Ah, teacher, this has been a wonderful day for me! 
The good nurse has been talking to me. She told me 
about this Thanksgiving Day and about the great 
Saviour who loves us so. It is wonderful, wonderful 
beyond thought. But when I think how His disciples 
act ; of how my own people who serve Him are so good 
to such a worthless old stupid as I am, I think it must 
be true, and the bitterness runs out of my heart. But, 
oh, dear, my poor husband! How he would have re- 
joiced to hear such news! I used to complain at him 
because we lived so meanly. But when I saw him no 


SAN DSI'S THANKSGIVING 


39 


more I remembered how patient he had always been 
and how hard he always tried to do for us, even when 
the dragon charm pulled hard at the cords of his leg. 
Ah me, ah me! Lonely I am. The bitterness comes 
back to my heart. 

Speaking words of comfort when they do not bring 
back the husband is not easy. I thought to ease the 
pain by diverting her mind to San Dsi, and told her 
of how he had accompanied us, and, in accounting for 
his absence, told of our experience of the afternoon. 
When I spoke of the road the wanderer had traveled 
seeking happiness and mentioned his struggling up the 
mountain with his shrunken limb, a wistful wonder 
came into her face. Just then the sick man was 
brought in and set down in the hallway. He was ex- 
hausted, but the physicians administered restoratives, 
under which he soon revived, and looked around in 
puzzled awe. San Dsi came into the lighted room, his 
eyes blinking because of the sudden change from the 
outside darkness. At the same time his mother came 
from the opposite door, weak and trembling with 
excitement and suffering, for each step caused tortur- 
ing pain in her feet. She tottered straight to the 
couch where the sick man lay. Their eyes met, and 
she uttered a cry and fell towards him. San Dsi 
sprang under her, supporting her, and the two little 
girls ran crying to her side. 

But on her knees she made to the couch, and fondled 
the strangely twitching face and wet the cold hands 


40 


MEY WING 


with her tears, crying between her sobs : husband, 

my husband! Jesus has sent His messengers to find us 
both. Come, San Dsi, come, little ones! This is our 
Thanksgiving Day, too.’^ 


CHAPTER III. 

THE MOTHER LOVE. 

About the time when Chao Ju recognized the Eye, 
his mother thought she saw a lesser light. It was evi- 
dent that the god who presided over her crops and had 
his residence in the field-shrine her husband had spent 
much time in fitting up for him, was offended because 
the heir of the house no longer lighted the candles at 
his feet. At the time of sowing the spring crops the 
mother and uncles arranged quite a feast in his honor. 
They had been owing entertainment for some time to a 
number of their neighbors, but had not felt able to 
spend the money necessary to prepare the courses 
which would fittingly maintain their position. But 
now they perceived that they could sweep both heaven 
and earth with one broom. The great red papers were 
procured. The skill of the teacher-uncle was drawn 
on and invitations in the proper form were prepared. 
The old father surveyed the forms very carefully, and, 
though secretly quite proud of his son’s achievements, 
undertook to criticise some points, as it was proper that 
the head of the house should be able to do. This was 
finally sent: ‘‘To the honorable, the great man, Mr. 
Li Si Hwa, greetings : The viands will be prepared for 
the evening hour of the twenty-first of the spring moon. 
Gong Je Ying bowing down, offers regards.” 

( 41 ) 


42 


MEY WING 


They had desired to fix the time a day or two later, 
when the moon would not rise until an hour after dark, 
but the fortune-teller whom they consulted in search of 
a lucky day for the function assured them that the con- 
junction of forces on their preferred date would be such 
that the wind and water would not be propitious and 
the genii of agriculture would be perturbed, while all 
signs pointed to the twenty-first as an auspicious 
occasion. Accordingly, on the morning of that date, 
the tables were arranged and the feast spread out from 
the first course, of watermelon seeds, to the tenth, of 
sharks^ fins, and the rice was made ready. 

The good things were mostly procured from a 
restaurant. The housewives were hardly to be trusted 
in such an important case, and more, the household god 
would probably be jealous, did he see such a spread 
intended for another. Even when the rice was cooked 
in his presence, a goodly portion was left standing be- 
fore him, and great care was taken to speak loudly in 
his hearing, of their unusual poverty which would com- 
pel them to refrain from making that offering to him 
which his goodness and protection deserved. 

In solemn silence the family assembled, and, each 
in his order, they made their obeisance before the 
shrine of the neglected god, acknowledging both his 
power and the favors he had granted them in the past 
seasons. Allusion was made to some shortness in 
measure of the immediately preceding crop, and he 
was importuned to look with acceptance upon the poor 
offering now before him, and in his bounty cause their 


THE MOTHER LOVE 


43 


seeds to germinate, and direct the winds and rain so 
that by another harvest season his servants would be 
able to make a more plentiful return. 

They feared that Chao Ju^s absence would be de- 
tected, so a neighbor’s boy of the same size and com- 
plexion as the absent one was found, made to wear a 
new coat which had just been prepared for the boy 
at school, and taken with the family to the sacrifice. 

The guests had been invited to assemble at candle- 
lighting, in the hope that the evening might be cloudy, 
but they all came together while the moon was flooding 
the yellow fields with its mellow beams. There was 
prospect that they would have a long wait for the 
viands, for as long as such light was given, the eyes of 
the god jealously guarded the tables standing before 
him. Moments passed which seemed to the embar- 
rassed hosts and hungry guests to be leaden-footed 
hours. The only clouds visible hung low in the 
western sky, and the moon mounted higher in full- 
orbed state. The situation was one demanding des- 
perate remedy. Even in the west the cumulus mount- 
ains were being pierced by starry rays, and the night 
bade fair to be cloudless. The elder of the uncles 
slipped out and gathered a number of younger members 
of the families whose representatives were among the 
waiting guests, dressed them in beggar clothes and sent 
them to collect the food, which the god would suppose 
had been stolen. The family would escape his anger 
since the charge of impious sacrilege could not be laid 
against those who had so piously offered what vandal 


44 


MEY WING 


hands removed. The feast was hastily prepared and 
served, no allusion being made by the punctilious 
guests either to the delay or to the manner in which the 
provisions had been rescued. The prestige of the 
Gong clan was heightened and all proper steps had been 
taken to secure the favor of the exalted ones. 

With the certainty of good crops, they felt safe in 
purchasing a pomegranate garden lying next to their 
fields, agreeing to pay for it in the fall, and borrowing 
money to make a small advance as bargain-binder. 
This added work to hands already full, and that 
season’s rice and beans were not attended to as well 
as was demanded, but the field god was relied on to see 
that the ground did not harden. 

It was impossible to explain what followed. Even 
the card-dealing fortune-teller was at a loss to account 
for it. But while their neighbors had fair crops the 
threshing-floor of the confident Gongs was scantily 
covered. The humbled head of the family was com- 
pelled to sue for the indulgence of his creditors. Then 
a council was held. Si Jing was called from his tailor 
shop in the city to give his advice. The gray-haired 
father spoke first. 

^‘The rice gangs are full. Our bowls need not be 
empty until next season’s harvest is due. But the 
sacks lie unfilled. There will be none carried to market 
this year.” 

He paused to draw at his long-stemmed pipe which 
he had refilled while speaking. A few strong pulls and 
the pellet of tobacco was consumed and meditatively 


THE MOTHER LOVE 


45 


knocked out on the floor at his side. The second son 
lighted his pipe with the still glowing embers while the 
eldest spoke : 

^^Our chopsticks will have work, but the cow must 
be satisfied with straw, and the beans will hardly suffice 
to fatten half the pigs.’^ 

Si Jing had brought his water pipe with him from the 
city, and waited now to take several draws through 
the gurgling water before passing the pipe to the next 
brother. No one volunteered any remark, so he con- 
tinued : “The Great One who guards our fields must 
have gone to sleep with a full stomach and be waiting 
for you to rouse him with another feast. 

The younger counsellors looked at the rigorous 
temple elder in poorly concealed surprise. He was 
not accustomed to speak slightingly of the holy ones. 
Still the case seemed to justify unusual views. One 
said: “The elders of Lotus Pond village, last feast, 
became convinced that their guardian did not realize 
the heat that was drying their fields, and allowed him 
to stand uncovered in the center of their market-place 
through the heat of a seventh-moon day. Perhaps 
the Great One would understand our straits more 
clearly were we to place him where he would be roused 
each morning by the squeals of the hungry swine. 

No one responded by smiling even. It was not 
known that Gong had ever failed in reverence. The 
little old mother from her corner spoke to the backs of 
the men. “Have you considered that the Wise One 
may have seen through the imposture and knows that 


46 


MEY WING 


our little one is not being trained to worship at the 
shrine of his fathers?” 

The concert of smoking continued while they waited 
for some one else to speak. It is not the custom for 
women to intrude their opinions in the councils of men 
in the Middle Kingdom. Still they felt that the 
mother had hit at a vital point. When the old man^s 
pipe went out he laid it on the table, and fingered the 
cup of tea that stood at his elbow. 

^‘The boy,” he said finally, “is old enough to be earn- 
ing something. I would not that he should grow up 
without piety, and idle. Let him come home to partake 
with us of the feast of the eighth moon.” 

Gong Sao Dsi heard from her retired seat where she 
was sewing on winter shoes for the boy. She had some- 
times felt twinges of jealousy when in talking with him 
she realized with what strong affection he regarded the 
foreigners who controlled his school, and she was 
vaguely disturbed as she speculated as to his future 
should he remain under their influence. But she knew 
the sorrow he would pass through were he to be re- 
moved, and sympathized with it to a certain extent. 
There was very little outlook for him on their meagre 
farm. It was barely able to fill the many mouths al- 
ready relying upon its products. But she feared a 
reproof did she break into the council with her fears. 
Yet almost she had persuaded her faltering voice to 
break the silence when the youngest son spoke. 

“The prospect is that we will have to wear our 
girdles a little more tight than usual during the coming 


THE MOTHER LOVE 


47 


feasts without extra mouths to fill. The boy^s hands are 
now soft and his head empty of all but characters. Why 
must we carry this burden?^’ 

said Si Jing, ^Hhe little brother has grown 
to manhood^s discretion. He has nursed with the 
fox’s cub. My father is wise and has always guided 
his family in prosperous paths. But if he will deign 
to listen to one who is dull in understanding, he will 
be able to say whether a thought that has come to me 
is worthy of consideration.” 

“ ^The eldest whelp will some day divide to the old 
lion his share,’ ” quoted the father; ^Tet my son tell 
his plan.” 

Before coming out, I went to see the boy. He 
seemed very well, and full of hope. I would hardly 
recognize in him the boy who used to ride our buffalo 
to pasture. The characters of the great Master are 
stored up in his stomach and his pen is that of a judge 
in the examinations. He sent his reverent obeisances 
to you all. While I was smoking a pipe with the gate- 
keeper he told me that these foreign people have also 
opened a school for girls. What queer ideas lead them 
in thus wasting their time cannot be imagined. But 
that concerns us not now. If we can profit by their 
foolish extravagance we need not wait to counsel them 
in wisdom. What help we can get in our present straits 
is only a part of that return which is due from the 
people beyond the four seas to the children of the Son 
of Heaven. For has not our great Emperor allowed 
them to come here and learn the wisdom which has 


48 


MEY WING 


come down to us from our immortal ancestors, that, 
returning, they may nourish their own land therewith?” 

^^My son has a discerning mind. But what is this 
to us?” 

^^Yes, I was going to tell that. The gatekeeper also 
told me that the foreigner’s wife is not strong, and needs 
a woman to assist her in the school to do such work as 
our little sister here is well prepared to do. Now if 
my mother could spare her for a time we would be re- 
lieved from providing the food to fill her mouth, and 
the wages she would send to us each month would go 
to make us independent of the favor or anger of the 
unappreciative spirit who receives but gives not. Once 
the pomegranate garden is paid for, we can let the fields 
lie for pasture, and save our labor heretofore spent in 
offering to the Greedy Ruler.” 

“Since my first-born has put his trust in the Deity 
of the Shears and Needles he forgets to reverence the 
Great One who has nourished his fathers for many 
generations. It is not well to speak so, for who can 
tell when his words may be reported by the unquiet 
wraith of some gossip whose children fail in filial de- 
votion? Still, these words are not without discretion. 
But who would care for the little daughter of our 
nephew who has been left in our home?” 

“Why could she not eat of the foreigner’s rice for a 
time?” 

And so it came about that the mother and son both 
lived within the gates of the Barbarian that winter, 


THE MOTHER LOVE 


49 


and the little niece also began to learn of the way that 
leads to the Beautiful Gates. 

Thus it is that the Infinite Father of all whom He 
has made of one blood, in spite of foolish racial pride 
and selfish motives, leads wanderers to the Light of 
Ages. 

But Gong Sao Dsi did not comprehend the light. 
When Chao Ju recognized the Eye she was still walking 
in darkness. It was not surprising that she did not at 
first understand when he spoke in terms of an equation 
she had not studied. He received permission to visit 
her after study hours one evening when she was resting 
from her work. 

Mother, I must be about my Father’s business.” 

^^Why, child,” she said, ^^your uncles are looking 
after that. You are too little yet to take up such heavy 
work.” 

‘^Oh, no,” he replied, “I mean my Father in heaven.” 

^‘1 know not, child, where your father may be now. 
The home of the spirit foxes is hidden from our eyes. 
Heaven is pictured in the temples of Lord Buddha as a 
place of many joys, and I would rather think of him as 
there than as in the place of sin and suffering. But 
most do I wish he were here with us.” 

^‘Yes, mother.” The lad spoke wistfully. ‘‘1 have 
dreamed of playing by his side, though I never could 
clearly see his face, much as I wanted to know his like- 
ness. But when I waked I would cry to know it was 
but a dream. Now, however, I speak not of my grand- 
father’s son; but of tho eternal Father^ his [and yours 


50 


MEY WING 


and mine, Him whom the Child served when just my 
age, and whose Eye searches for me every day in the 
schoolhouse/’ 

Why, son, what strange notions are you speaking?^^ 

“Have you not heard, mother, of the Child in the 
temple?’^ And he found the story in a gospel portion 
and read to her of the wondrous Child among the 
doctors. 

“Surely, it is a pretty old tale, my boy. But what 
has it to do with me?’^ 

“Don’t you see, mother, that He set us an example 
of how we, too, should serve the Father?” 

“But your father is gone, and it is to me now, and 
to your grandfather, that your service is due.” 

And the mother would not understand what the boy 
tried so hard to make clear to her, for although she 
seemed to him to be dense, secretly she was terrified 
with the thought that he was drifting from the moorings 
of ancient faith, into strange harbors, or to wide seas 
where she could not follow him. Life and death to 
her had always been mysterious, from whose changes 
she had shrunk into the quiet of tradition and custom. 
Her husband had been carried away in a gale of the one, 
and now her boy was sailing off in the dim vistas of 
the other to realms where she could not follow. She 
could not argue, for he was beyond her depth or height. 
She simply tried to hold him down by force of dumb 
inertia. But young birds who have discovered their 
wings may not be denied their use. So the boy with 
each trial of faith found more delight in the breadth of 


THE MOTHER LOVE 


51 


new life brought within his ken. When she was in his 
dormitory a few days later, mending his stockings, he 
spoke again. 

Mother, the Child acknowledged the Father when 
He was twelve. I will be thirteen in two more moons. 

^^My child, I do not understand you. Why are you 
not content to walk in the path of your ancestors? 
Have you, too, swallowed the witching pill? These 
foreigners seem so kind and honest that I had almost 
thought that a foolish slander. But seeing you so of 
one thought, without a second, I doubt the advantage 
of constantly eating their food. I think we had all 
better return to your grandfather^s house ere we lose 
our senses entirely.^’ 

It was Saturday afternoon. The school-room was 
empty. 

^^Come, mother,^^ said the boy, ^‘to my desk. You 
can see it.^^ 

She did not know what he was meaning, but glad to 
be moving, she went with him. They sat down on the 
bench and he showed her his books, his writing copies, 
and his new pens. The patch of light on the floor 
moved gradually toward their backs while they talked. 
He told her of the Eye that had followed him ever since 
he entered the school. She nervously remembered 
hearing his uncles speak of the Evil Eye which caused 
so much sickness and death in the neighboring village 
until it was exorcised by a great priest from a distant 
city, and did not in any way doubt the truth of his 
experience. As he told of how it searched his heart 


52 


MEY WING 


and knew of the loneliness and sorrow hidden there, and 
found his secret thoughts, she shivered and drew her 
coat more closely over her breast. 

^^Are you cold, my mother?” he said. ‘‘But see, the 
Eye is searching for you, too. Do you not feel its 
warming and comfort?” 

The clouds of the afternoon broke away and the 
light shone through, bathing her face and throat. But 
even while he was rejoicing in thus securing for her a 
meeting with his great Friend, she broke away with a 
cry of fear, and ran to her own room and hid her face, 
trembling and unnerved. Chao Ju, puzzled and sad, 
sat for a time, then went to the bright-faced lady who 
reviewed his lessons from time to time. He found her 
sewing on a little dress. 

“Lady,” he said, “my heart is divided. One half 
is bright and joyous because I have so good friends here 
since my earthly father has been taken away, and be- 
cause I have found my Heavenly Father who comes 
searching for His lost little one. The other half is 
heavy and sad because my mother cannot understand.” 
And he told of the Eye, of his reading of the Child, of 
the Father’s comfort for his loneliness, of his trying to 
lead his mother to see what had helped him so much. 

The lady listened with tears in her eyes and a song 
of praise in her heart. How had this little one got so 
far out of the darkness, and she nor any of his teachers 
had known of it? And with the gladness of her heart 
shimmering through her smile, the music of her joy 
sweetening her voice, and the shining of her soul in 


THE MOTHER LOVE 


53 


her eyes she let the little dress lie with the needle in the 
unfinished seam, holding his hand while she talked to 
him. Concluding, she said : ^‘Now, my little son, the 
Lord does not come to us all in the same way. This 
little dress would not do for my big girl, and your cap 
would not become your good mother. The light that 
came to you in the school passed over a good many 
other little boys, but its warmth was felt only by their 
backs, it did not reach to their hearts. To you God 
made the sun His messenger. To others it was only a 
light. To your mother He will come in some other 
way, causing her also to recognize His presence. Never 
fear.’^ 

He went away comforted and with clearer vision. 
Recognizing his inability to lead his mother to his view, 
the longing grew that the light would come to her, and 
the desire to, in some way, bear witness to what the 
Heavenly Father was to him became stronger. He 
read of how the Son received baptism as a fulfillment 
of the requirements, and read of the command that 
such as believed were to be baptized. He went di- 
rectly to the lady. 

^‘When can I receive the rite of washing?’^ 

^‘Why do you desire that?^^ 

Because it is commanded. 

^^By whom?^’ 

^‘The Book says the Lord left it as a precept to His 
disciples. 

The lady led him to the pastor and told his request. 
The pastor was perplexed. He would have no hesi- 


54 


MEY WtN<^ 


tancy in baptizing his own son with such a testimony, 
but this boy^s friends and surroundings were all such 
as to render the living up to such a profession extremely 
difficult, if not improbable. 

^^My boy,’^ he said, ^Hhink it over; talk it over 
with your mother and uncle. Try yourself and study 
the way a little longer. Then come back and we will 
talk it over again. 

The lad was puzzled. He could see no reason for 
delay, but the next time his uncle called he told him 
what he wanted to do. The uncle went to the mother. 

^^What has bewitched the boy?^^ he asked. She 
could not answer. She expected Si Jing to get in a 
passion, and to denounce all those connected with the 
school, and she would not have been surprised had he 
demanded that she and the boy pack and depart at 
once from the place where he was learning to cast off 
the beliefs of his father^s house and race. But her 
astonishment was great when he continued : 

^‘That he should give attention to these new doctrines 
I am not surprised. I myself have felt the hollowness 
of some of our ancient customs. But that he should 
acknowledge the superiority of the foreigner by re- 
jecting his ancestors and joining the Jesus church, we 
must not allow. His name would be stricken from the 
family roster and he would be cut off from any share 
in the inheritance. It would cause the scornful finger 
of our neighbors to be pointed at our father’s house, 
and you and I would have to bear the blame. No ; 
command him to think no more of any public rite, but 


THE MOTHEB LOVE 


55 


to give heart with ten parts earnestness to the ac- 
quisition of the characters and wisdom which the Great 
Master gave the people of the Eighteen Provinces for 
their guidance/^ 

Gong Sao Dsi repeated this to the lad, with dark 
hints as to the terrible wrath of his uncle should he per- 
sist in his own way. He thought over it for a few 
days more, then went to the pastor. 

^‘When can I receive the rite of washing?’’ The 
pastor questioned him closely as to his faith, and was 
satisfied. 

^^Have you talked with your mother, my boy?” 

^^Yes.” 

^^And is she willing?” 

^^No ; she and my uncle forbid it.” 

^^Then why do you still ask me to do this?” 

“Because the Child was just as old as I am now when 
He acknowledged the Father in the temple. I would 
like to remember all my life that He and I had done 
that at the same age.” 

The pastor questioned as to his knowledge of the 
possible results of the step, his uncle’s wrath and the 
rage of the family in the country. The boy had 
thought of it all, he said, and had made his choice. 
Then the Spirit of God, who taketh away fear, came 
into them both. They kneeled down and the elder 
man put the boy with a man’s faith into the keeping of 
the God of Samuel, and on the following Worship Day 
set him apart to be the Lord’s. 

After the service Chao Ju walked back to the school 


56 


MEY WING 


under a sky which seemed to the others in no whit 
different from the ordinary skies of a cloudless eight- 
moon day, but to him it was writ in the hues of light 
and spoken in twitter of birds that he had been received 
into the number of the children of God. And he was 
well content. 

His mother was present and saw it all, dumb with 
astonishment and apprehension. She feared the wrath 
of Si Jing, but dared not delay making known lest she 
should be charged with complicity. In answer to her 
summons Si Jing came the next morning before school 
hours. Chao Ju was taken to her own room, where his 
uncle arraigned him on the charge of insolent irreverence 
and reproached him bitterly. He made no denial and 
attempted no defense except that the command of the 
Word left him no alternative even when met by the 
prohibition of kindred. He spoke simply, with no 
fear and no defiance, putting forth no argument, and 
in his manner acknowledging their rights to treat him 
as they would. The mother marveled at the quiet 
strength of the hitherto timid boy. The uncle was at 
heart uneasy, but supplied the place of argument by 
giving reins to his anger. The mother trembled for 
her son, and would fain have shielded him, but the 
uncle, in a towering passion, whipped him, demanding 
between the blows whether he would recant his pro- 
fession and promise obedience to his lawful guardians. 
But the boy, though writhing in pain, held fast to his 
convictions, and, convinced of its fruitlessness, he de- 
sisted. 


THE MOTHER LOVE 


57 


And then came the second astounding occurrence. 
The mother gathered her bruised and sobbing boy in 
her arms, and, forgetful of the defeated and angry man 
sitting in the corner, wept with him. Then the light 
came to her heart, too, and she cried out: ^‘Oh, my 
boy, my son. Weep on, but let your tears now be of 
joy! I, your mother, will learn from you to believe 
and to be true. The Child came to teach us all, and 
thou hast learned His secret. Be glad, my little one. 
I have seen a light which shall brighten my lonely 
path. Together we will walk in it, for thy courage 
and thy gentleness are born of Him who gave to His 
mother a son when she was under the shadow of His 
cross. There will we dwell.’^ 


CHAPTER IV. 

MEY WING AND THE LADY. 

Wu, The Lame, did not grow strong on his feet. 
The hospital treatment and the food, and the presence 
of his family worked, together with spiritual peace, to 
restore a good degree of health and vigor. But the 
lame limb was useless and the other seemed to be in 
some way affected by the long vigil and fast on the 
mountain. He walked no more without crutches. The 
winter was well over when the doctor said the hospital 
could do no more for him. The mother had found a 
place as nurse in a near-by gong gwan — as they called 
the rich man’s home — and San Dsi was still earning 
little more than his own support with the donkey. 
They found rooms to live in. Mrs. Wu came home 
once in a while for an hour to visit and help. Wu sat 
on a bench and earned some money by whittling flutes 
and toys. He and the two little girls did the house- 
keeping together. But the housekeeping was very 
simple. Each one folded his quilt on rising. Mey 
Wing took two cash and went to the neighboring shop 
after hot water for tea and toilet, while Ma Dsi swept 
the floors. Dry bread and weak tea made the break- 
fast, over which Wu always reverently gave thanks, 
asking to be guided in the Way that day. They made 
fire in the middle of the day and cooked rice enough 
( 58 ) 


UT^r W1N6 AN£) TliE LADY 


59 


for dinner and supper, and had pickled cabbage or 
carrots as a relish. Occasionally there would be a 
small dish of pork or fish, from which each ate sparingly, 
picking it out deftly with chopsticks. What need of 
table linen put on the table just to be soiled? They 
placed the relishes or meat in the center of the square 
deal table, put on two chopsticks for each mouth, 
and the table was set. A bowd of rice before each one 
furnished the staple. When they had eaten to the 
full, the bowls and chopsticks were easily rinsed and 
set away and the girls had nothing more to do. Simple 
as their life was, rent and clothing and food for them- 
selves and the donkey called for more cash than they 
all earned. Rice bills had to be paid, but clothing was 
not renewed ; and when the winter came again, there 
was not a wadded garment in the house. 

The doctor, though a busy man, rarely failed to 
inquire how the lame man was doing, if his calls led 
him in their direction, but the lack of good assistants 
kept him in the hospital that fall, until on the first win- 
try Sabbath he missed them from the services, and made 
inquiries. At his suggestion one of the elders visited 
them, and came back with the request that the doctor 
would call at the home of the Wus on the next day. 
The lame man sent regrets and apologies for asking 
this, but he was unable to go to the doctor, and he 
had a little matter to discuss. 

Mey Wing was watching at the door, and when she 
saw their friend coming, she whisked into the house 


60 


MEY WING 


to give the news, then waited at the door to receive the 
guest. 

“Good morning, doctor; my father is not well, 
and asks that he may be pardoned for not coming out 
to receive you. Will you come in where he is?’^ 

They found the lame man on his couch. 

“Ah, teacher,’^ he said, “this is a great honor to my 
mean abode. 

“I'm glad to be here, Wu, but sorry to hear you are 
not well. What’s the trouble?” 

“There is no trouble. God keeps my heart singing. 
I died once in the mountain-top, but He sent you to 
give me life again. Then He put within me the life 
that His Son came to give us. Now I see the long life 
not very far ahead. God calls me, and but for one 
thing my heart would be full of joy.” 

“What makes my brother speak so? Who knows 
but this life will be long yet?” 

“No, doctor. The deadness that has made this 
leg hang useless has now come to the other also. You 
have taught me not to fear the dragon spirit, but 
something drags at my back even now and I hear the 
call. The Lord wants my spirit. But my little ones 
are tender and need care and counsel. Has the doctor 
time this morning to hear me?” 

“Yes, my brother may speak.” 

“My wife and the boy will sorrow when I go, though 
it has never been given me to do much for them and I 
am only an expense to them now. But they can get 
on without me. The evil generally avoids busy people. 


MEY WING AND THE LADY 


61 


These two little ones — what will become of them? 
And how will Mey Wing come to her own? But the 
teacher is too busy to think of my little affairs.” 

‘^No, no. Go on, if I can help in any way.” 

^Gt is for Mey Wing. The teacher has thought she 
was just as the others of my children. But she is a 
magnolia bud on a willow tree. If the teacher does not 
consider the words of his stupid younger brother too 
trifling, it would ease my heart to tell the story. 

‘ AVhen San Dsi was in his seventh feast, I was selling 
my goods some forty li from home, and reached home 
as the moon was rising in the seventh watch. My 
poor house stood on the outskirts of our little village. 
As I was about to enter it a party overtook me and asked 
the distance to Tao Ing Hien. I answered them that 
it was about one more day’s journey for men who 
walked fast. Then one of them began to scold and 
insist he would not go any farther without more money. 
I saw that they were wheelbarrow-men. A woman was 
on the barrow and she began to scold, then entreat 
them to go on, promising that when they reached the 
city her husband would surely give them double wages 
for one more day’s travel. But they sat and smoked 
their pipes, refusing to go on. She began to cry in 
distress, and I went to the men to ask why they were 
doing so. They said the woman was the wife of a 
scholar who had left her some months past to seek for a 
school in Ching Jeo Fu, and afterwards she hired these 
men to convey her thither. When they arrived the 
husband had gone on to Tao Ing Hien, but leaving her 


62 


MEY WING 


no money, and it was not till they were two days out 
that they found she had not enough to pay them. They 
would not chase fox-fire around the country and get 
burned for their pains. The woman’s baggage would 
not pawn for enough to pay what was already due 
them, and they would take her no farther. 

^‘You know, sir,” said Wu, ^^our scholars, though 
the jewels of the realm, are often without money for 
rice.” 

Yes, the doctor knew. When a vacancy occurred 
among his helpers, where a man of literary standing was 
required, any number of applications would be received 
from graduate scholars who were willing to assist for 
three to four dollars per month. Wu continued his 
story. 

^‘The woman was in great distress and shame. She 
was evidently of some culture and felt her unaided 
position very keenly, and finally she appealed to him 
with such helplessness that he sought his wife’s counsel. 
Her woman’s sympathy was touched by the other’s 
need, and the end was that the stranger was received 
into their home to stay until Wu, in his rounds, should 
visit the city and make inquiries for the husband. When 
he did so, it was to find that he had drifted on, no one 
could say whither. Sending letters cost the wage of a 
man’s day. The poor wife delayed sending word back 
to her friends, partly because of the expense and partly 
from shame. Finally she died in their home, leaving 
a little one to their care. Wu then wrote to her friends, 
but received no answer, Either the address was im- 


MEY WING AND THE LADY 


63 


perfect or the letter-carrying firm failed to deliver it, or 
the friends did not wish to undertake the care and ex- 
pense of a girl-baby. She stayed in their home, and the 
younger children never knew she was not their own. 
Now that they were among strangers none but the 
foster-father and -mother knew her story. For eleven 
years she had been in their home. At first they had 
kept her with the thought that when friends claimed 
her they would get back what they had expended for 
the mother. Afterward she found her place in their 
affections, and they would have been loth to give her 
up. Now, however, he felt that they had hardly done 
right in not taking more active measures to find her 
own people. Her mother had told them that her own 
brother was a rising man in line of official promotion, 
and she had put much reliance on his assistance, when 
she should get strong enough to seek him. The names 
of this brother and of her husband had been carefully 
preserved, and he saw clearly that his duty was to 
make an effort to find them and restore Mey Wing to 
her own blood. The doctor was in touch with many 
prominent men of Wu’s people, and had influence. 
Would he be willing to assist in the search? 

The little girls had stayed outside while the man 
talked. They were called, and when they came in, 
the doctor, observing closely, with the interest roused 
by the story, saw plainly a difference in feature and a 
certain grace in Mey Wing's movements, absent in 
those of the little daughter of uncultured parents. 
Whjl^ the father made occasion for calling them by 


64 


MEY WING 


speaking of household matters, a plan formed rapidly 
in the other’s mind. It was evident that the lame man 
had good grounds for his forebodings. A short time 
would end his journey of this life. This would for the 
time prevent his wife from earning money. San Dsi’s 
earnings would not go far toward supporting the family. 
It was time, at any rate, they should be relieved from 
the care of the little one whom they had so generously 
succored while they were able. So he spoke when the 
girls went out : 

^^It is a strange story that my brother tells. I will 
gladly do anything in my power to help. But the 
search may be long. The people of Han are many, 
and often girl-babies are accounted well disposed of if 
they can be lost. In the mean time the two little ones 
are idle and not learning. I know it is not the custom 
in this country to teach girls to know books, but the 
great Book teaches us to give all the same training as 
far as we can. My proposal is this : Let them go to the 
school beside the hospital and study. The winter is 
coming on and it is cold here for little bodies. The 
mother can pay for food for Ma Dsi there as here, and 
you know she will have good care. As for Mey Wing, 
let me share my brother’s burdens and provide for her 
until her own kindred shall claim her.” 

Wu had learned late the grace of receiving cheerfully. 
Yet his natural independence, fostered by many years 
of rough contact with all sorts of his people, made it 
hard for him to consent at once to such radical pro- 
ceedings. He lay silent for a time, then answered ; 


MEY WING AND THE LADY 


65 


^^The teacher heart is always right and his thoughts 
are full of wisdom. Yet my poor head is not clear. It 
is a great matter that is proposed. If my elder brother 
will not think his stupid disciple too ungrateful for such 
unmerited kindness, he will let me have a day or two 
to think it over.” 

The second day Mrs. Wu called on the doctor^s wife, 
bringing as presents for the children some of the toys 
which Wu was still making when he had strength. 
After chatting a while on other matters she approached 
her real object. 

^^Did the learned lady know that the doctor had 
called at their humble home?” 

Yes, she had heard with much solicitude of Mr. Wu^s 
poor health. She hoped he was not suffering much. 

Ah, yes, he was very poorly. The doctor’s medicine 
was powerful and truly was driving out the poisonous 
humors. They would be glad to have him call again 
when he could spare time from his many labors. They 
knew, though, they could not expect him to come often. 
But about the little ones in their house. The doctor’s 
kind heart had led him to speak of school for them. It 
was more than they deserved. And she and he were 
on their knees thankful for such kind thoughtfulness. 
But he could not spare them from before his eyes. 
Certainly they were worthless and much in the way, but 
he had been accustomed to their presence and would 
miss them so much. Would the learned one condescend 
to convey this poor message to the doctor with her 
best thanks? 


66 


MEY WING 


Yes, the doctor’s wife would tell him. And the 
doctor looked at his own little ones singing noisily in 
his back study and understood. It was not for long 
that Wu had the pleasure of their company. He failed 
rapidly. His friends did all that could be done, and 
when his spirit departed to its new, untrammeled hfe, 
they carried the narrow wooden casement of the worn- 
out fleshy tenement and laid it in its earthen abiding- 
place in the little God’s Acre, where the bamboos waved 
their feathery leaves. 

Then the doctor’s wife called on the stricken widow. 
Oh, the pity it is that sinning children of the Infinite 
Father, wandering in the realms of evil, cast themselves 
out of one of His lesser Edens, by failing to live out the 
sacred ties which join man and wife into one. Rich is 
the woman who may mourn a faithful and loving hus- 
band and out of the abundant stores of her heart’s 
tender memories recall the years of true companionship. 
The East rejoices not in the chivalric ideals of the West. 
The knightly care and courteous devotion which is the 
flower of Christian homes is not common in the Old 
World, where woman is expected to wait on the beck 
of her lord; but the laws of God will work out even 
there sometimes, and long companionship ripen into 
affection for a knightly soul, though it be encased in a 
limping body. So the doctor’s wife and the peddler’s 
widow, coming from antipodes of longitude and ideals 
and training, found common meeting-ground in thank- 
fulness for the faithful devotion of a loved husband. 
The sympathy of the West opened the heart of the East, 


MEY WING AND THE LADY 


67 


and the barriers between the New and Old melted in 
tears of understanding. 

Afterward the rooms were given up. The doctor^s 
proposal about the girls was accepted. The mother 
returned to her work. San Dsi and his donkey took 
up their abode near her. The names of Mey Wing^s 
father and uncle were preserved by the doctor, but his 
inquiries failed to result in finding them, and the two 
girls grew up in the school. The lady became their 
guide and teacher, as she was the friend of Chao Ju, 
but the two schools were separated and the boys and 
girls saw little of each other, except in public gatherings. 

When Chao Ju was eighteen he went from the school 
and became a helper in the medicine-room at the 
hospital. This was the doctor^s way of testing boys 
who thought they would like to have the standing and 
reputation of the foreign physicians. Honesty, prompt- 
ness, faithfulness to the little duties, kindness and 
patience for the sick, as well as Christian knowledge and 
adaptability, — all these must be shown or the doctor 
had no time to spend on their further training. They 
had many opportunities to peddle out medicines in 
such doses as they were constantly preparing under 
direction, and many a one thought to line his cash- 
box in this way, but sooner or later it was known, and 
another prospective physician went to his own place. 
Long-nailed scholars would take the vacant berth, but 
when the use of knife and nailbrush was insisted on 
and heavy boxes were required to be moved and 
opened, they would give it up and go out, assuming 


68 


MEY WING 


again the gown with the long sleeves to protect the 
hands from rough contact. Hopeful scions of official 
families would aspire to the honor, but few of them 
stayed long after they learned that regular hours were 
insisted upon, that opium was not tolerated on the 
premises, and their utensils must be cleansed and put 
away by themselves before work-hours closed. 

No one who had any knowledge of the Chinese char- 
acter and of the doctor^s tenacity of purpose experienced 
any surprise over the results. The phenomenon was 
the patience which allowed the constant stream of ap- 
plicants to pass through his sieve when so few were 
big enough in character to lodge. If one would seek 
for a parallel, he may find it in the snow-fed mountain 
stream which flows merrily toward the fertile valleys, 
but ever loses its water in the consuming sand of the 
plains. The glowing sun which starts the waters on 
their way finds its counterpart in the fierce heat of 
competitive life among the millions of the black-haired 
people. The fertile vales are the lucrative positions, 
and the never-satiated sands are fit emblems of the 
dry, withering, blasting forces of deceit and greed and 
sensuality. 

Chao Ju was forced into this current by constraining 
powers new to his people. The Eye of the Father still 
pervaded his consciousness. The sweetness and do- 
cility of the Child still captivated his fancy, and the 
desire grew in him that he might some day be fitted to 
go out, like Him, on a ministry of help and teaching 
and healing. The superintendent of the school where 


MEY WING AND THE LADY 


69 


he had spent six years watched the boys always to see, 
if he could, into what they would grow ; and when the 
doctor, weary of the loss from the sands, asked if he 
knew of any good boy who would like to enter on a 
medical training, Chao Ju was given his opportunity. 
And having entered the race, he stayed. Year by year 
he advanced steadily through the grades of attendant, 
student, and assistant. Week by week he sat in his 
place in the chapel while the preacher opened to the 
congregation the Word of Truth and broke to their 
understanding the Bread of Life, and Chao Ju fed and 
grew strong. But, almost unconsciously, another force 
was coming into his nature through the years. His 
seat was with the older boys in the front corner, in the 
pews that faced the pulpit from the side of the house. 
From this point they could see the whole of the au- 
dience. The corresponding seat on the other side was 
occupied not by maidens of their own age. That, of 
course, would have been to invite trouble. With the 
preacher directly in line between them, how could 
they control eyes and thoughts? A wise forethought 
had provided that any unpremeditated straying of 
eyes should be met from the other corner by the uncom- 
promising wrinkles of mothers and the widows of the 
church. The front seats on that side were given to the 
smaller girls. The young married women came behind 
them in the center, and over next to the windows sat 
the ones who in all countries must be guarded from 
hunters, who in turn, receive those wounds which put 
an end to their further roaming. 


70 


MEY WING 


Prettiest among them and brightest of eye, Mey 
Wing always sat in the same place, and not once did 
the boys catch her doing anything that could be inter- 
preted as an attempt to attract their attention. This 
was more than could be said of some of her companions. 
The result was seen in the chaffing talk of the young 
men. The names of most of the girls could be heard 
used in jest, but she was rarely referred to. Then her 
name was not used, but she was referred to as the Mey 
Hua (Rose). Yet any one of them all would have 
thought more of her smile than of the Sunday dinner. 

Chao Ju was among the young men what she was in 
her circle — easily the leader. Tall and strong, even in 
feature, and serene in expression, quietly courteous in 
manner, yet with a certain confidence in himself and 
alertness of movement which was not natural to his 
race, but had been imbibed, rather than copied, from 
the doctor, he was a striking figure whether he sat and 
listened or moved among others. As boy and man he 
had admired Mey Wing since he first entered the school. 
And as she developed into young womanhood and 
proved to be not only fair to look upon but an in- 
tellectual leader, her very reserve and self-constraint 
proved additional stimulus to interest and admiration. 
I do not think that he ever neglected the worship of 
the hour to look at or think of her, but for years he was 
always conscious of her face set in its frame of quiet 
reserve, which even the lady’s gracious friendship did 
not entirely melt away. If his thoughts carried him 
any further, he spoke of it to no one. I do not think 


MEY WING AND THE LADY 


71 


he realized into what he was drifting. Mey Wing on 
her part allowed no suggestion of special thought of 
any man to be made to her or for her. Those matters 
are all left to the parents in that land. As to what 
was in her heart I never questioned until one evening 
she came into our house to consult an old lady, whose 
home was with us, on some matter. It so happened 
that while she was there some young men came to see 
me. Two came first, with whom, in our presence, she 
chatted for a time with the freedom of one who had 
grown up in contact with American ideas. But when 
Chao Ju came in the rich coloring was slightly deepened. 
Reserve marked her few words, and she soon excused 
herself and withdrew, much to the regret of the young 
men, who would gladly have availed themselves of the 
unusual opportunity to enjoy the company of this 
favorite, but usually unapproachable, fellow-pupil. 

Contrary to all usage, she was still unengaged. Most 
Chinese girls are betrothed by their parents in infancy. 
Many go out at once to the home of their future 
mothers-in-law and grow up in the home with their 
husband-to-be. Few go past the age of ten without 
being bound to one whom they know not, and all are 
settled in the same way before they go far in their 
teens. Suitors there had been for Mey Wing’s hand, 
many of them. But in her childhood the Wus hardly 
felt that their claim on her would justify them in giving 
her away. Afterward, when Mr. Wu was waiting for 
his summons, one of the striking marks of his breaking 
away from the trammels of ancient customs was given 


72 


MEY WING 


when he said one day to his wife, ^^Let Mey Wing be 
free until she grows up, and consult her before binding 
her for life/’ So the gentle foster-father, though dead, 
was still the protector of her young womanhood. 

But while in so many respects Mey Wing was satisfy- 
ing the best desires of friends and teachers, in one thing 
needful she had disappointed them. She had never 
acknowledged the claims of the Christ, whom all her 
fellow-pupils gladly professed. Why this should be 
was a great puzzle. She was gentle and teachable; 
was well acquainted with her Bible, and always sat 
reverently quiet through religious services. But no 
one could say whether this was because of respect for 
the services, or for her instructors, or for herself. 
Perhaps when she was a girl, when others of her age 
were joining the church, if some one had understood 
her and dealt with her sepafately, and with sympathy, 
she might have been led. For I think that then it 
was a dislike to do just what others were doing that 
held her back more than anything else. She allowed 
this to dominate her acts until she, realizing how un- 
tenable a position it was, cast about for some other 
support for her self-isolation. She had not learned 
the true story of her mother, and thought herself only 
the daughter of Wu, who had gone before, and of his 
wife, who held at her work of children’s nurse. She 
knew, however, that not all of her expenses were paid 
by Mrs. Wu. She was sensitively aware that she was 
indebted to the foreigners for her education, and while 
she was in one sense grateful for this, — for she realized 


MEY WING AND THE LADY 


73 


its advantages, — yet there was also a recoil of loyalty 
toward the ideals and worship of her own people and 
nation. 

The lady invited all the girls to her parlor one even- 
ing to look over some newly arrived pictures of foreign 
travel, thinking it would add to the interest of geog- 
raphy study. Mey Wing perhaps was not very well. 
At any rate, she did not get ready to go. Her sister, 
Ma Dsi, remonstrated. 

^^Come, sister. Teacher says the pictures are very 
fine.’^ 

tired of seeing pictures of foreign places and 
hearing their beauty emphasized. Why don’t they 
bring us pictures of our own country with its famous 
plains and sacred mountains? Are not the cities which 
our own people have built as great as their cathedrals 
and ruins?” 

“But, sister, the teacher will be sorry if you stay 
away.” 

“Ma Dsi, I’m sick of this whole life. Must we al- 
ways fear to displease these teachers from across the 
sea, who despise from their calm superiority our own 
great teachers who have kept our nation for these 
thousands of years while these people count their 
history by the hundreds only? No ; go on and look 
at their pictures if you want to, and forget your own 
ancestors and lower yourself by making light of the 
noble deeds of people of our own blood, if you can. 
I have no heart to do so.” 


74 


MEY WING 


^^Why, Mey Wing, our teachers never speak so of 
our people!^' 

'^No, they do not. But the whole tenor of their 
work teaches it. We cannot follow them without re- 
jecting the ancients.” 

Sister, what causes you to speak so? I do not 
understand you.” 

There now, little sister. DonT let my irritableness 
worry you. I know I’m not grateful as I should be. 
You go on, and I’ll go to bed and sleep off this head- 
ache, and we’ll both feel better in the morning. Ask 
the teacher to excuse me, please.” 

The walls of the city, thirty-seven miles around, sur- 
rounded much more ground than was actually occupied 
by the business and homes. Part of this territory was 
taken up by gardens and small farms, or by wooded 
hills surmounted by temples, or bamboo-shaded vales 
in whose depths lay shrines. A large portion consisted 
of rolling hills covered with grassy mounds, beneath 
which lay the bones or dust of successive generations. 
The number of inhabitants in this city of the dead was 
greater than the number of living. Hither the pious 
came to offer their prayers and sacrifices at graves of 
parents and ancestors. Since the war of the Tai Ping 
rebellion, in which the city was nearly destroyed, its 
population had been recruited from all sides, until 
customs of all provinces could be observed within its 
walls. The coffins of Ningpo people were not covered 
with great heaps of earth, but enclosed with brick, 
plastered on the outside and painted white. In one 


MEY WING AND THE LADY 


75 


end a hole was always left so that the spirit of the dead, 
the one of the three spirits that made its abode in the 
body^s resting-place, might freely go in and out. 

In the spring of each year came the Tsing Ming, the 
festival of spirit- worship, of ancestral remembrance. 
The pious heaped the grave-mounds higher and re- 
paired the sod, crowning all with a green sod if possible, 
in which were sticks holding tiny streamers of red 
paper. The dusk of evening was specked by fires 
burning paper money and implements for use in the 
spirit realms. The morning hours were resonant with 
moans and outcries of wives and children lamenting 
loudly, dolorously detailing the virtues of the departed 
and the woes of the mourners. And to honor and pacify 
those forlorn wraiths whose descendants failed in piety 
or had forgotten their place, benevolent associations 
performed the rites in wholesale lots on the eve of All 
Saints^ Day. A generous conflagration and general 
scattering of paper, coins, and tinsel ornaments al- 
layed the resentment of these liable-to-be-disgrunted 
forbears and brought peace for another year. 

Strange, trifling, ludicrous! Yes, perhaps so — to us. 
But terribly real and sorrowful to them. And Mey 
Wing, in her eighteenth year, after seven years of 
Christian teaching, broke away that spring from the 
restraints of the school and the training of the mission 
and the beliefs of all her acquaintances, and was found 
one morning wailing at the grave of her lame foster- 
father. Her passionate heart, starved for love by her 
own self-isolation, fixed itself in yearning return on the 


76 


MEY WING 


memory of the gentle-voiced man who had ever been 
kind to her and about whom childish recollections wove 
an additional halo of goodness and protecting care. 
No one had taken his place. If there was a stronger 
love in her heart it was as yet unrevealed to herself, 
and she shrank from intimations she did not under- 
stand. Her reserve had cut her off from any in whom 
she might confide. The drag of centuries of super- 
stition behind her and the undercurrent of billows of 
degradation around her pulled at her spirit as had the 
dragon spirit at the maimed limb of the father she was 
seeking, and in the early dawn she slipped out past the 
astonished gateman and in desperation fled to where 
the silent bamboo stood guard over the burying-spot, 
casting herself and her sorrows on the ground over his 
dust. Ma Dsi, following in haste and dread, found her 
there, and, held back in awe of the storm sweeping over 
her proud beautiful sister, heard, not as an eaves- 
dropper, but as a ministering spirit hovering near, the 
cry of the groping, lonely, weary-winged soul : 

“O my father, if thou art here, give ear to the cry of 
the little one to whom thou wast always kind. I have 
not worshipped before thy tomb in years that have 
past, but if thou art a spirit, thou knowest my heart 
and seest that it was not because thy child has ever 
forgotten to cherish and love thee. What dost thou 
need in thy spirit home? Speak and I will go naked 
or on my knees and beg from door to door but that the 
refining fires shall carry it to thee in their smoking 
incense. But, oh, listen to my call and turn not away 


MEY WING AND THE LADY 


77 


thine ear. For my heart is sore and bleeding. It 
weeps and knows no peace, so that my eyes run tears 
in my night-watches, and in the midst of companions I 
am lonely, ah, so lonely! O my father, woe is me! 
If thou, 0 blessed one, hast found access to the holy 
ones who give joy and sorrow, with whom are the 
secrets of life and who are hidden from our clay-bound 
eyes, plead with them for me. Tell them of my heavi- 
ness, of the darkness that dwells within me, of the 
sorrow that bounds my days, of the hungering heart 
that finds no love to feed on. Ask them why I must 
suffer so when others are satisfied and happy. 0 my 
father, words fail me — where art thou? Even thou 
dost not respond. Woe, woe! Bitterness overflows 
my heart and grief chokes my words. Aiah, aiah! I 
have lost thee! I have lost thee, my last refuge! My 
own sins weigh me down and thou hearest not.’^ 

And she lay prone on the earth with her hands 
stretched over the sodded mound. The dampness of 
the undried dew clung to her garments. In the ab- 
sorption of her seeking she saw not nor heard when Ma 
Dsi silently hastened away, but waited between hope 
and despair for some sign of guidance. Neither did 
she notice when the lady came silently up the path to 
where the sun was casting lacework of light through the 
quivering bamboo leaves over the girhs form. 

The light of the seeking Saviour shone from the 
elder woman^s eyes, and the love of Christ constrained 
her as she lovingly touched the cold forehead and said 
in tones that breathed heavenly pity: 


78 


MEY WING 


The poor maiden was like many another who sends 
up petition with tears and groaning and yet looks not 
for answer. Not realizing that any one was near, she 
started fearfully at the sound, terrified as Endor^s 
witch at the result of her own call. Then, seeing the 
loving face so tenderly seeking her weal, the tension of 
night vigils and morning despair broke away, and as a 
tired child she laid her head in the lady^s lap and they 
sat in the glory of the morning sun, risen in his bright- 
ness, while the elder told the younger the story of the 
Saviour’s tomb and of the angel’s question, ^^Why seek 
ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is 
risen!” And faith came with healing touch into the 
heart of the girl. She felt that her Father in Heaven 
had heard her wandering cry and had sent His message 
of peace. And she walked home with her hand in that 
of the lady, and her faith resting in Jesus. 


CHAPTER V. 

THE BETROTHAL AND THE DISAPPEARANCE. 

Faemer Sung hoed his straggling wheat until he grew 
tired. It was not an unusual occurrence for Farmer 
Sung to grow tired early in the day. The sun was hot 
and the weeds many. The ground seemed hard, too, 
and he decided that the hoe must be dull. He glanced 
toward the house and saw the old mother and aunt 
going into his ell, so he concluded that matters were 
all right there, and walked across the fields to the 
village, a mile away, to get his hoe sharpened. He 
might have done the work himself at home. His 
father had kept tools for such work in the house, and 
the ground rarely ever got hard when he was working 
the farm, which he had earned and handed down to his 
son. But Sung the younger had a mind above hoeing, 
and digging, and planting, and pruning, so the farm 
did not yield so well after the father’s death. 

The blacksmith was busy, and as he never saw Sung 
in a hurry, his work waited. So the farmer went across 
to the tea-house and paid half a cent for some tea, and 
three-tenths of a cent for some tobacco, and the other 
two-tenths for some salted watermelon seeds. He 
thought of paying one-tenth for some peanuts, but he 
threw dice with the boy and lost ; so he paid his money 
and ate his watermelon seeds. At the end of an hour 
( 79 ) 


80 


MEY WING 


the weather and other topics of public interest had been 
pretty thoroughly discussed and the hoe was sharp. 
So he paid half a cent for the work and went back across 
the fields to be in time for dinner. At the door a 
neighbor woman met him and courtesied. ^^Con- 
gratulations to you, Neighbor Sung. May your house 
be extended.^’ 

A faint wail from within explained her meaning. 
He set the hoe against the mud wall of the house and 
drew his pipe from his girdle to fill it before answering. 
It was his first child, and he did not know just how to 
meet the occasion. That he was confused was evident 
when he offered the woman the first draw of smoke. 
Then he asked, “Is it a boy?^^ 

“Kiang Yin has blessed your home with a pearl who 
will follow her mother’s feet.” 

The disappointment was visible on the young man’s 
face, but he thanked the woman for her kindness as she 
went home. Later, when he spoke with the little 
mother, he sought not to conceal his displeasure. She, 
too, had wanted a boy, yet her arms and bosom yearned 
for the little one, and as it lay soft and warm, close to 
her heart, she could not but love it, and its cries put 
her a-fluttering like a bird whose nestlings are dis- 
turbed. They irritated him. His pipe failed to soothe 
as usual. 

But the days passed and the little one grew. The 
firstborn, she was a wonder and mystery and ineffable 
joy to her mother. The father tolerated her, grudg- 
ingly at first, afterwards with more pleasure than he 


THE BETROTHAL AND THE DISAPPEARANCE 81 


would admit, but her name always set forth the manner 
of her reception. They called her Tao Di, and that 
means, Praying for a younger brother.’’ To men and 
to gods this was an intimation of their expectation. 
But the brother did not come, and the girl and her name 
remained. Gradually she came into the place reserved 
for the boy. 

When she was three and Chao Ju was five years old, 
their parents betrothed them to each other. The 
acres of the two families were watered by the same 
pond. Each was an only child. When these facts 
were laid before the geomancer, together with the dates 
of their birth, a lock of the hair of each, and some other 
material, he was soon satisfied that their horoscopes 
were favorable to a union ; a lucky day was named, and 
he received a fee for such pleasing assistance. Hence- 
forth they were bound to each other, but she re- 
mained in her mother’s home till she should be grown. 
When Chao Ju entered the school they met no more, 
and their development was along lines radically dif- 
ferent. 

The farm work had become still more irksome to 
Sung. The cold of winter was hard to endure and the 
heat of summer was oppressive. The spring labors 
made him weary, and although he complained of the 
scantiness of the harvests, the task of gathering them 
was unwelcome. He decided that his abilities would 
find better play in keeping an inn, and he rented a 
cross-roads house. The front wall was of brick, and 
bordered the street. All other walls were of ^dobe and 


82 


MEY WING 


the roof of straw. The whole front was taken up by a 
long, narrow room, having a wide opening on the street, 
boarded at night, open by day. In one end was the 
kitchen, and in the other a number of square tables for 
use of guests. Through the room went beasts or carts 
to the courtyard, on three sides of which were sleeping- 
and feed-rooms, except that the central room in rear 
was reserved for a reception-room, presided over by 
the god of riches. In one end stood the coffin which 
Sung had prepared against the time when he should 
need it, and in the opposite corner was a straw pallet 
for occasional use. These were covered with dust, but 
the chairs and table in the center were generally brushed 
for services. 

In this place Tao Di grew to womanhood. Her 
mother did most of the work and the girl was assistant. 
To Sung it was a favorable place for the cultivation of 
his germs of indolence. He sat behind a counter in a 
corner, where he sold tobacco and some other trifles, 
or smoked and talked with his guests. Many of those 
who stopped there were users of the black food, as 
opium was called in contradistinction to the white rice, 
and a room was fitted for their special use. This was 
against the earnest remonstrance of the wife, but Sung 
was set in the thought of making the money which can 
always be obtained for semi-illicit goods. Opium was 
kept on hand for his customers, and before many months 
of his landlord life passed he had — for business reasons, 
he said — learned to smoke occasionally with guests. 
And so in his indolent way he drifted gradually into 


THE BETROTHAL AND THE DISAPPEARANCE 83 


the habit and became a confirmed ^^pipe-hitter.” 
More and more of the burdens fell on the wife, until 
she became bent and broken in body and soured in 
temper. Chiding her husband did not help matters. 
Remonstrating with him had no effect. Finally, partly 
in spite, partly to quiet pain and nervousness, she, too, 
sought the deadening drug, and the better part of the 
business failed month by month. But the opium-rooms 
were well patronized, and that class of customers came 
to his inn. 

The girhs character partook of the nature of her 
surroundings. No one can say what she might have 
become in different circumstances. But everything 
dragged her down. Poverty haunted them. What 
they made they smoked up. Indolence walked with 
irregularity. The vicious ones who gathered there 
brought to her knowledge, evil of all kinds. Decent 
people shunned them. She, too, learned finally, in 
reckless bravado, to use the pipe. Yet she was natur- 
ally bright and attractive, and proved a magnet to 
draw the young men from neighboring towns and even 
from the city to her father^s house. She knew no better 
life. 

Chao Ju remembered the bonds in which he was held, 
and, as he came to realize what a life with such a wife 
would mean, tried through his friends to have the girl 
brought under better influences. But her presence in 
the opium resort secured too much custom for Sung to 
relinquish the gain before he must, and nothing could 
be done, Seeing more plainly what such a life must 


84 


MEY WING 


mean to the girl, Chao Ju offered to fulfill the betrothal 
early and take her to his home, but this also was de- 
clined, and he could do nothing. Then Mey Wing 
came into his life, and, though perhaps he did not know 
why it was so, the bonds placed upon him in childhood 
by parents became odious chains which cut into his 
quickened manhood. But there was no escape. Law 
and custom held him and her, while each dreaded and 
disliked the other. 

Among those who stopped at the inn, came one day 
a party of young men, going to pass the season of the 
Dragon Festival in Nanking. They were the sons of 
well-to-do parents, and had more money than man- 
hood or wisdom. They found Sung’s place fit in very 
well with their ideas of having a good time, and de- 
layed over a day, dividing the time between sleeping, 
eating, drinking liquor, smoking opium, and gambling. 

When they went away their score at the inn was met 
by their winnings from its landlord, and they carried 
some of his cash with them. This was taken from what 
Tao Di had saved for a year for a visit to the city at this 
same festival. She had enjoyed the stay of the 
travelers. Her blunted moral sense did not revolt at 
their coarseness and profligacy. They were of the type 
from which her surroundings had hitherto cut her off. 
She willingly waited on them, and enjoyed the badinage 
and ribaldry which passed, feeling no womanly shame 
at what she saw and heard. 

Her mother had still some remnants of her sense of 
propriety and mother-love, and sought to hold the girl 


'THE BETRO-rflAL AiSTD tHE DISAPPEAHaNCE 85 


back from such association, but her weak course had 
lost for her control over the wayward, untrained daugh- 
ter. Her father sottishly sacrificed his child^s honor 
to his desire to please his rich guests. Their talk about 
the festival whetted her desire to see its wonders, and 
she made up her mind to see them at that time. When 
they were gone and she found her money had been 
used, her resentment was all against her father. Her 
heart burned hot as she thought of the pleasure thus 
forfeited, and a storm of angry words did not exhaust 
the fury. That night she lay awake and planned, and 
the next morning while the others still slept she rose, 
took her small pack of clothes and some opium which 
she could sell for enough to pay her expenses, and 
started to the city. She got a man to carry the bundle, 
but she herself walked the ninety li to her mother’s 
sister, who lived just outside the gate. 

The next morning the city was in gala dress. Most 
of the shops and business houses were closed. The 
streets were full of jostling, chattering, eager crowds. 
The slight breeze kept many dragon kites up. Gay 
streamers floated from many tall posts and door- 
handles. Curiously cut sheets of bright red, yellow, 
or purple paper, were posted everywhere. In the 
evening there would be a great procession headed by 
bands of music, in which would be an immense painted 
wooden dragon, perhaps a hundred feet long. Each 
joint would be upheld by a man whose head and 
shoulders would be within it, or hidden by trappings. 
In the midst of lanterns and torches, with shouting and 


86 


MEY WING 


laughter of multitudes, swaying and writhing, it would 
be borne through miles of streets. Then it would be 
put away until another cycle would bring the day of 
recalling and appeasing the great dragon. 

Tao Di arrayed herself in her best, but felt that it 
was very poor. Her resentment was undiminished, 
but she felt oppressed by the strangeness and the 
crowds. In spite of the aunt’s remonstrance, she was 
abroad, unattended, early in the day. She feared to 
meet her former acquaintances ; especially did she wish 
to avoid Chao Ju. And she hoped that in some way 
she might meet the strange travelers. 

Wandering about the streets, she grew very weary 
and hungry. Chancing upon an open door, within 
which she saw people sitting on half-filled benches, she 
ventured in, and finding that she was not unwelcome, 
sat down. A man in the front was speaking. At first 
she paid no attention to what he was saying, but 
curiously watched the passing crowds. As she rested 
she became more hungry. Her attention was called 
to the man who was speaking by hearing the word 
bread.” He was saying, ^‘He gave them bread from 
heaven to eat.” She wondered if he had any to sell, 
and looked to see if any were on the table before him. 
Then she heard again : ^^But my Father giveth you the 
true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he 
which cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto 
the world.” 

She was hstening intently when a stir at the door 
caused her to look in that direction. Chao Ju entered 


THE BETROTHAL AND THE DISAPPEARANCE 87 


and walked quietly to the front. He had not noticed 
her, and with a sickening fear of his presence she slipped 
out and hid in the crowds. 

The words she had heard remained with her, and she 
wondered what they might mean. She caught a 
glimpse of a mountain-peak of truth and hope through 
a sudden rift, but the clouds of sin and self had closed 
again, and she was without a guide. 

She wandered aimlessly along the streets, which were 
all new to her, carried with a crowd, attracted by some 
gayety or driven by restlessness. She bought a light 
lunch at a street stand, not caring to return to meet the 
displeasure of her aunt, and fearing possible restraint. 

As she started on she saw in the street ahead signs 
of a disturbance. A drunken weaver had been taken 
by some soldiers, and was being pushed along the 
streets towards their camp. The news spread quickly 
among his fellow-workmen, and the guild members 
rushed to his rescue. Men hurried by her towards 
the crowd coming, rolling cues under their caps and 
removing superfluous clothing in preparation for a street 
brawl. The girl pressed close to the building at one 
side of the narrow street, to avoid the clash. Strug- 
gling, clamoring, and gesticulating, the opposing forces 
crowded by. She could not see the outcome. On one 
side of her was a fat old man carrying a piece of pork. 
On the other was a woman with incense for burning at 
Buddha’s shrine. Two others were jammed against 
them by the press. One was a child whose head was 
wrapped in a red flannel, a flaming signal of what was 


88 


MEY WING 


seen below, its face blotched with the open sores of 
smallpox. The second was a tall Mohammedan. The 
pork soiled one sleeve and the child’s face brushed the 
other. 

Heh,” he exclaimed in protest. Swine’s meat and 
a Ma Dsi.” 

He was disgusted with both, but was much more 
concerned over the grease-spot than over contagion’s 
touch. 

As the pestiferous odor of the disease ascended hot 
into Tao Di’s face she shivered slightly and tried to 
recoil. But she recalled that though she had not been 
inoculated as most children were, her father had paid 
the price of a calf for a charm which would keep off 
the disease, that her face might not be marred by its 
pits. She felt that the amulet was in its place, and dis- 
missed the matter from her mind. The street she 
was on was interrupted by a hill whose base was 
bounded by a red wall fifteen to twenty feet high. Over 
this she could see tops of buildings rising in succeed- 
ing rows until the top of the hill was crowned by two 
temples covered with porcelain tiles, red, and purple, 
and white. It was the great temple to Kong Fu Dsi,* 
where were placed tablets to himself, his parents and 
his illustrious disciples. Its portals were closed except 
at the times of spring and autumn sacrifices. Even 
her untrained mind was stirred to a certain racial awe 
as she stood by the spot dedicated to the nation’s holy 


* Confucius. 


THE BETROTHAL AND THE DISAPPEARANCE 89 


sage, “Chief among the Myriad Great Ones,’’ the 
“Exalted Teacher of the Wise Immortals.” 

While she lingered a donkey came trotting around the 
corner. Its driver urged it forward to the entrance of 
the gatekeeper’s lodge. Its rider, a dignified teacher, 
dismounted, and after some parley went inside. Some 
curiosity was manifested by the onlookers, and this 
was augmented when, as he appeared again, accom- 
panied by the keeper with the keys, four sedan chairs 
came hastily around the same corner. The bearers 
hastened their steps almost to a run at a sign from the 
teacher. 

They stood at a small side gate, and while it was 
being opened four women, two foreigners and two native 
women, stepped quickly out and started inside. As 
soon as the bystanders realized that the influence of 
the foreigners had opened the gate, a rush was made 
to gain ingress with the party. A dozen or more 
crowded in before the scolding keeper could slip the 
bolt into place. Among these was Tao Di. Curiosity 
led her near to the group, and in the scramble she was 
in before she realized what was going on. Somewhat 
frightened at first, her audacity quickly returned. She 
had not seen foreigners before, and she followed them 
wonderingly, staring and trying to listen to their words. 
But they only made sounds that to her were unin- 
telligible, and she wondered if they really could under- 
stand each other. As they paused in the wide Hall 
of the Master she crowded up close in front. The 


90 


MEY WING 


teacher was explaining the great tablet overhead. He 
spoke in her own tongue, and she listened. 

^Ht means, he said, ^‘that the fame of Kong the 
Master shall extend through myriad ages, and his 
lustre exceeds that of thousands of suns.^’ 

But when the strangers spoke together again in their 
own language she forgot that they were human, and 
felt of the white hand of the nearer one as she would 
have examined a strange stone. It was warm and live, 
and she drew back startled. The lady noticed her, and 
sought to speak kindly, but she was afraid, and shrank 
away against the younger of the two Chinese attend- 
ants. 

‘^Mey Wing,’^ said the lady, please tell her she need 
not be afraid.’’ 

The two girls looked at each other. One was rough 
and uncouth in spite of her pitiful attempts at finery, 
half bold, half frightened, wholly defiant, as a wild 
thing; the other gentle and courteous, with a face 
showing not less of strength, but more of peace and 
character. 

To the one Chao Ju was bound by law ; to the other 
he was drawn by love. Neither had previously known 
of the other’s existence, nor did their contact extend 
any further, for when Mey Wing would have spoken, 
the poor girl sullenly turned away and kept at a dis- 
tance until the gates were opened for their exit. She 
crowded out with them, and almost ran against Chao 
Ju. He did not notice her, as he was waiting for the 
lady, for whom he had a message, and she slipped into a 


THE BETBOTHAL AND THE DISAPPEAKANCE 91 


dark corner and watched them. She noticed his 
handsome figure and easy carriage, and while she 
dreaded his control she could not but admire him. She 
shrank farther back, that he might not see her unat- 
tended. 

A wave of new feeling came over her as she saw his 
deference toward Mey Wing and the flush on the 
latter^s face as she acknowledged his greeting. 
Womanly instinct caused her to realize suddenly the 
chasm between herself and them. Anger toward them 
and her father seized her, and she fled from them, her 
breast filled with rebellion. Chao Ju caught a glimpse 
of her as she passed, and, with an ejaculation of sur- 
prise, started toward her. But she heard and saw, and, 
mingling in the throng, turned a corner and ran in 
terror of him. 

He was not sure that he had recognized her, and 
knowing it was not seemly to pursue her in any case, 
turned away, tortured anew by the galling of the be- 
trothal chain. 

Suddenly Tao Di found herself confronted by a band 
of flashily attired youths, and heard them accosting 
her : 

^^Well met, well met, little sister! Were you run- 
ning to meet us? You must be as glad as we are at 
this good fortune. How is your honorable father? 
Where have you left your silken chair? Now we have 
found our guide. The gods have heard our prayers 
and sent us a divinity to lead us to victory! Now our 


92 


MEY WING 


dragon boat will surely win. Thanks to thee, Ju 
Yuen!* Sie Sie, Da Pu Sa.’^ 

She recognized the travelers whom she had met at 
the inn, among others whom she had not known. She 
knew that it was beyond all bounds of propriety that 
they should thus accost her on the street or that she 
should speak to them, but in her savage bitterness she 
threw aside all restraint. Rallying her depressed 
spirits, she answered their raillery in like manner. 

^‘Come,^^ they cried, “we waste precious time. We 
are late now. We lingered too long in the noble hall 
of your father. We were bewitched by twinkling hlies 
and the enchanting of a flute-toned voice. We have 
secured a fleet dragon boat and have but just com- 
pleted our crew. But we still lack a guiding spirit. 
Come, thou shalt sit in our boat’s end and sing to us of 
the prowess and valor of Kuh Yuen. The light of 
thine eyes shall kindle our souls, the gladness of thy 
voice shall quicken our strokes, the crown of victory 
shall be on thy brow while the ten myriads of be- 
holders shall sing thy beauty.” 

They were flushed by wine and drunk with riotous 
spirit of the festival or they would not have dared to 
propose so lawless an innovation. She was filled with 
the bitterness of her position and the recklessness of 
the self-loathing outcast or she would have put her 
fingers in her ears and escaped for her life. But she 
went with them. 

Many a curious glance followed them as they passed 


* “Thanks, O great god.’ 


THE BETROTHAL AND THE DISAPPEARANCE 93 


boisterously over the long street, through the damp, 
dark-tunneled gateway, elbowing among the increas- 
ing crowds. In the boat-house the rowers stripped for 
the contest. Over Tao Di they threw a silken robe, 
blue and scarlet ; on her head they put a tinsel crown. 
They whitened her face and stained her lips. In her 
hands they placed embroidered flags, then they gave 
her the seat in the stern of their boat. In the bow sat 
three men with fife and flute and drum. 

Loud plaudits from the multitude rent the air as the 
boats came from cover into the open waters of the 
canal, and the buzz of a hundred voices made a new 
phonetic background against which ordinary sounds 
lost their clearness. The partially deaf heard more 
clearly than those of clear hearing. The preparations 
were brief. The contestants lined up, and, when above 
the confusion the brazen blast of the official trumpet 
was heard, all started. It was not scientific. It was 
a contest of endurance and strength and wits, but not 
of skill. Yet the excitement was intense. The drums 
beat, the fifes shrilled, and the guns and fireworks add- 
ed their maddening confusion, until clouds of smoke 
met over the water and at times clouded the view. The 
canal was too narrow to accommodate all the boats 
abreast, and collisions and fouls were frequent. The 
course was short. At the turning-post two boats were 
overturned and their crews struggled out as best they 
could. Some were drowned in spite of efforts to help 
them, but the other boats paused not to see, but swept 
around back past the starting-point to the goal. 


94 


MEY WING 


When Tao Di appeared in her boat she was greeted 
with roars of laughter and applause. No one sus- 
pected the truth ; all thought it was a man dressed in 
woman’s clothing. Her rowers were all strangers in 
the city, and as the boat had no distinctive mark she 
was chosen to give it a name, and it became for the 
race, “The Woman.” She was second to safely round 
the post and start goalward, but in a few rods the third 
boat drew up and passed her, its rowers using every 
ounce of their strength. The spirit of rivalry and 
victory flowed through Tao Di’s every vein and pulsed 
to the end of her finger-tips. She was timid at first, 
but when she realized the mistake of the crowd she gave 
free vent to the riot of her mind. On the homeward way 
she gave rein to the excitement. She sang the songs 
of her country life; then chanted the prayers to the 
god of the rivers ; she called to the men, keeping time 
with her body to the strokes of the oars. The flags 
in her hands measured the length of the sweep. As 
they neared the goal she rose to her feet ; the players 
ceased their noise, and clear and sharp amid the 
clangor sounded her voice, — 

“Row, men, row, strain to your oars. 

The spirits of the air behold you ; 

What care ye though tales be told 

When praise and plaudits enfold you?” 

Among the crowds lining the banks shouts arose, 
“The Woman, The Woman! Look how she flies! 
There, she’s second now. Watch her again! Taels 
to coppers she’ll go in first,” 


THE BETROTHAL AND THE DISAPPEARANCE 95 


Then to the ears of the men in the boat came again 
the clear, inspiriting cry, — 

“Keep to the right; bend, men, bend! 

Sing to the praise of The Woman’s boat. 

See our rivals’ last boat fall behindl 

Behold Kuh Yuen! Victorious we float!” 

The tension was over. The goal was passed. The 
spectators thundered applause. But Tao Di sank 
back in her seat, weary and sick. The intoxication 
of the hour was over. The danger of her surroundings 
came to her. Her mood changed. She hated the men 
with her who had degraded her publicly. She must 
escape from them. 

As they neared the boat-house she saw among the 
bystanders Chao Ju and his uncle. He seemed to 
haunt her that day. He recognized her. His face 
grew stern as in a low tone he called his uncle’s atten- 
tion to her. Then together they started to the boat- 
house to meet her. She could not bear their re- 
proaches. Frantically she tore off the trappings of 
her false position, thinking to jump into the water and 
drown herself if no other escape offered. Just at that 
moment a house-boat came down over the course and 
the current swept the poorly managed craft against the 
rowing-boat, upsetting it. As it turned the girl sprang 
to the house-boat and dropped through a window into 
an empty apartment before any one saw her. She 
heard a confused shouting, but did not look out to 
learn the fate of the rowers. Her refuge swept on down 
the current, and she lay still, endeavoring to quiet the 


96 


MEY WING 


beating of her heart, that her presence might not be 
discovered. The boat was empty, going, as she after- 
ward learned, to Wuhu, to bring down some goods. 
Cautiously she removed some loose boards from the 
bottom of her room and crept into the dark hold, re- 
placing the boards above her. There she remained for 
forty hours. For she feared to be discovered by the 
rough boatmen, and found no opportunity to get away 
unobserved. 

On the second morning she felt the grind of the keel 
as they reached an anchoring-place, and after a time, 
when all was quiet, she ventured to look out. The men 
were all gone save one, who was sleeping in the back 
end. A forest of boats’ masts extended up and down 
the river-bank. City walls were showing half a li away. 
Hastily she stepped across two intervening boats and 
took the path to the gate. Once inside the city she 
paused to look around. She was faint from hunger and 
chilled through. She had no idea where she was nor 
where she should go nor what to do. She went a little 
farther, and found an entrance to a temple where the 
sun shone warm on the brick-paved approach, and she 
sat on a bench and rested. Still the chill remained and 
her head ached. She had not a cash with her. A 
priest came by and looked at her. She was restless 
under his scrutiny, and when he went in she started on. 
Her head swam when she rose, and she steadied herself 
by a wall till the dizziness passed. Then she went on. 
She did not know how far she walked. But finally 
her limbs refused to move. She was at an open door 


THE BETROTHAL AND THE DISAPPEARANCE 97 


where she saw seats within, and she reeled in and sank 
into one. For a time she could not see nor hear. Her 
ears seemed full of roaring sounds and queer lights 
played before her eyes. Then a woman’s voice came 
to her. She did not open her eyes, but listened. She 
heard again the words which haunted her : am the 

bread of life. He that eateth of this bread shall never 
hunger.” She seemed to hear it as from a distance. 
Oh, how hot her head was! Then she saw tables and 
baskets of bread. The loaves seemed to have feet, and 
would troop past, offering themselves for her eating, 
but as often as she would put out her hand to take one 
it would mock her and run away. Hours seemed to 
pass. 

Then the dream changed. Some one with cool, 
gentle hand stood by her. It was the dress of a 
foreigner she saw, but the voice of her own home she 
heard. And it asked who she was and what she 
wanted. Her tongue seemed held by some evil spirit, 
and she stared but made no answer. The cool hand 
felt her brow, the pitying voice said to some one else 
far away, miles away, it seemed (how big the room must 
be, she thought): ^'She is sick. We must get her 
medicine and care.” 

Then she dreamed again. She was a princess, and 
was being carried in a chair. She was put on a velvet 
couch in a spacious mansion. Delicious food was 
brought to her, and she ate and ate ; then she wanted 
to sleep. 


98 


MEY WING 


When she woke she was in a great hospital, and the 
foreign lady was beside her speaking kindly, and the 
girl asked, ^^Are you the bread?” 

And the loving face of the other kindled with sur- 
prise and the desire to teach, but just then the physi- 
cian came by on his rounds. After the examination 
he said : 

do not understand this fever. She had better be 
separated from the other patients.” 

So the removal was made to a small building, stand- 
ing by itself in a corner of the grounds. And when she 
was rested, the foreign lady came and sat by her and 
tried to explain about the Saviour and the life He came 
to give. Tao Di tried to listen. It sounded sweet and 
hopeful. She needed some such help, she felt vaguely. 
But she was too weak to think or listen long. The 
dreams came again. Boats danced around her, or she 
was sinking in the water. So it was, day by day. The 
fever burned until the smallpox developed. Then she 
was more isolated than ever. In spite of care and skill 
she failed rapidly. In her delirium the thoughts of the 
bread remained, mixed with the words of the teacher, 
and she would murmur: 

^‘Yes, plenty of bread. He is our bread. But no 
bread for me. Life — life — yes — no — no life bread for 
me. Too late, too late. I cannot eat it. I cannot 
take it. Too late, too late.” 

And so she passed out of her poor dark earthly course. 
They did not know her. And she received the burial 


THE BETROTHAL AND THE DISAPPEARANCE 99 


of a stranger, though pitying eyes were wet with tears 
of divine sorrow. Light had come to her, but she 
dallied with darkness, and too late had come glimmer- 
ings of desire. The body was past the hour of sane 
reckoning. 


CHAPTER VI. 

CHRISTMAS JOY AND SORROW. 

Chao Ju had been in the hospital for five years. As 
attendant, student and assistant he had patiently 
worked on by the doctor’s side and under his direction, 
until he had acquired a good degree of knowledge and 
skill. Ordinary cases the doctor frequently left to his 
care. Most of the patients who came to receive treat- 
ments rather preferred to come under his care. They 
were hardly convinced of the superiority of foreign 
pills to native plasters, and at any rate one of their 
own blood could be consulted about various ailments 
common to their race, which the foreigner did not in- 
herit nor understand, and about which, in his igno- 
rance, he was apt to be incredulous, if not openly scoff- 
ing. They were puzzled that he did not examine their 
seven pulses and wear big goggles with horn rims, and 
shake his head over their distressing symptoms. But 
the pleasant light of his big black eyes did not cause 
them to feel so uncomfortable as the ra^^s that shot out 
from under the shaggy eyebrows, where the doctor’s 
gray eyes, like live things, took cognizance of every- 
thing. Very few of those who once passed in review 
before those eyes had any doubt of the doctor’s ability 
to heal their troubles, but they disliked the thought of 
their owner knowing all that was in their heart. 

( 100 ) 


CHKISTMAS JOY AND SOREOW 


101 


The day before Christmas had been one of unceasing 
activity. The fall rains had been light and the refuse 
and filth of the great city had not been swept away by 
nature^s flushing, and the incomplete fall cleaning had 
been supplemented very little by man, as usual. The 
succeeding months had been warm, and this unseason- 
able heat hastened the process of decay in which nature 
sought to complete the removal and utilization of dead 
and cumbering matter. From dirty streets and dark, 
damp alleys ; from garbage heaps and refuse at back 
doors ; from compost pits where fertilizers were kept 
in the garden corners; and from guild-halls where 
coffined bodies of those from distant places were stored, 
awaiting the action of friends, came offensive odors 
telling of foul and sickening gases. To the foreign 
nose the stenches differed from the normal only in de- 
gree. The native organ, accustomed to the richness of 
its native air, usually needed defense only when a 
foreigner passed close to windward. But that season 
even the citizens marked the smells, and the flap of the 
long sleeves was frequently brought into use as a pro- 
tection for the olfactory nerves. 

A long procession of dispensary patients had received 
attention, several operations had been performed, the 
hospital patients looked after. Two urgent calls came 
in the afternoon from points each some miles distant 
in opposite directions. One was from a man holding 
an important position, corresponding nearly to that of 
mayor in our large cities. His son, a youth of disso- 
lute habits, had run his course with impunity because 


102 


MEY WING 


protected by his father’s name, until he brought dis- 
grace to the home of a family, which had influence to 
enlist assistance of others powerful enough to dare the 
mayor’s power. As a matter of fact, the mayor did 
not at all approve of his son’s course and would not 
himself have protected him, but subordinates in his 
office sympathized with the young man and gave him 
support. This time, however, they could not save him 
from his deserts, and he went to his father’s apartments 
and swallowed raw opium, thus revenging himself by 
bringing odium upon both his father and adversaries. 
The doctor was summoned in haste to save life. 

The other call was from some refugees on a canal- 
boat lying outside the Dry West Gate. So the doctor 
went one way, and Chao Ju went to the refugees. His 
way led along the main street, widened to receive the 
traffic that trickled or poured in from intersecting roads 
and alleys, twenty feet from curb to curb. The open 
fronts of the shops that lined it fringed on the curbs. 

He passed through the arched opening in the wall, 
whose gates stood open in daytime, down the miles of 
suburban street along the canal till he came to the boat 
where lay the one to which he had been summoned. 
The lao han^ or boat-master, sat crouched on his 
haunches, smoking his pipe, and his weather-beaten 
wife on the other end of the boat was washing some 
vegetables in the canal. Her neighbor, the mistress 
of the boat anchored beside theirs, was washing her 
clothes in the same water, and the children were empty- 
ing the boat refuse beside them. The next boat-wife 


CHRISTMAS JOY AND SORROW 


103 


was dipping up water for the evening cooking, but it 
was all boiled before it was used. 

A crowd of curious children and loafers gathered 
around the young physician, and some sought to see 
the occasion of his visit by climbing to the boat, but 
they were gruffly ordered off by the lao ban, who paid 
no other attention to the matter. Hearing the noise, 
an old man came stooping through the awkward little 
opening leading from the inner quarters. He recog- 
nized his messenger, and surmising that the stranger 
was from the doctor whose aid he had asked, went 
forward as Chao Ju walked up the narrow plank from 
the bank to the forward deck, and received him with a 
low bow, his hands clasped in front. 

^^You are from the great hospital, sir?^^ 

^‘Yes.^^ 

And your honorable name?^^ 

^^Gong is my poor appellation. I have not learned 
your distinguished name.^^ 

^^My mean family name is Li.’^ 

‘‘And may I ask your given name?’^ 

“Ah, certainly. My unworthy name is Si Huing.^^ 
“Elegant! And your exalted age?” 

“Alas! . My years have been few and unprofitable. 
Forty-nine New Year days have I seen.” 

He certainly looked older. But the thin hair and 
wasted form told more of dissipation and inaction, per- 
haps, than of years. He wore the scholar's garb and 
had a bearing of good manners mingled with the hesitat- 
ing address of an unsuccessful man. 


104 


MEY WING 


But Chao Ju cut short the preliminaries and asked 
of the sick one for whom he had been called, and was 
led inside. On a quilt on the floor lay a younger man, 
pallid and emaciated. The first glance showed the 
visitor that he had been called to attend an opium- 
smoker in his extremity. The life hue was gone from 
the skin. Yellow and parchment-like, it was stretched 
tightly over projecting bones. Discolored teeth showed 
through the parched lips. The wasted hands, with 
long, slender Angers and oval finger-nails, showed good 
descent and care of former years. Now they were 
dirty and nerveless. But the thumb and forefinger of 
the right hand had the telltale stains which cannot be 
cleansed, telling of many an opium pill formed and 
pressed, moulded into shape for the pipe and the flame. 
The heavy odor pervading the boat told of recent use 
of the pipe that lay on a little shelf with the silver 
smoker^s case. He was too weak to talk, and Chao Ju 
directed his questions to the older man. 

^^What can I do for you?’^ 

^^You see, sir, this youth. Can you not do some- 
thing to bring him back to strength? I have done the 
little I can. We have had our own healers, but they 
have not helped him. And now that our money is all 
used they will come no more, and we hoped the foreign 
doctor might be so kind as to look at him. Since you 
come in his stead, doubtless you, sir, can write a 
prescription to call back his spirits that are leaving. 

^ ‘ My elder brother is mistaken. The foreigner works 


CHRISTMAS JOY AND SORROW 


105 


not with magic. He helps the sick and suffering, but 
cannot raise the dying. 

^^Oh, sir, you have learned their wonderful secrets. 
I cannot give you much money. But the Master said : 
^ Yield much, exact little. Dispense bounty and seek 
not reward.’ Help the poor boy.” 

You must believe me. I do not want your money. 
But nothing will help your friend. Why trouble his 
dying hours with medicine which cannot do good?” 

Ah, sir, if you would listen to me your heart would 
surely be touched. This lad is my all. You see the 
pipes here for the great medicine. In my heart I 
hate it, but for many years I have been addicted to it. 
My parents left me early. I had neither brother nor 
sister. A home I had, and one who dwelt within, but 
I left her to find employment, and never saw her again. 
After wandering for years I found a dwelling-place in 
the home of a great family as tutor to this boy. For 
ten years your younger brother had rest, except for 
the miserable opium. But having good food I was able 
to continue its use in moderation and keep at my work 
regularly. The boy grew up in my heart as my son. 
He was my pupil, my companion, my joy. Woe unto 
the day in which, foolishly overcome by his persuasions, 
I let him learn to smoke my pipe. He, too, came under 
the control of the terrible appetite. His father’s busi- 
ness kept him from home, and he knew not. When 
the mother learned, her eyes were blinded to his fate, 
and, though she grieved, she restrained him not. When 
after a year or so the father understood, he and the boy 


106 


MEY WING 


quarreled ; the boy left home to become a wanderer, 
and I was cast out. But the reproaches of the parents 
were not as bitter to me as my own remorse. The pipe 
became more odious, but I could not break away. With 
irregular employment, good food was scarce and the 
opium more necessary. No one would give me rice, 
but there were those who would debauch me with the 
black food. But the love of the lad never left me, and 
when I heard that he was far away from friends, sick 
and helpless, I took what money I had and borrowed 
what I could, and went to him. I found him with one 
consuming hunger for opium, and one desire, — to get 
home again. So we hired this boat and have been two 
weeks coming down the long river. Now, nearly home, 
our money is gone and he is so low. I used our last 
cash to buy opium. He can take nothing else, and I 
have restrained my own fierce desire that he might have 
it all. If he dies thus I can never look upon the face 
of his father and mother again and my life will go with 
his. Now, sir, let your grace be extended! Open 
your heart and help him!^^ 

He would not be denied, and, though Chao Ju in- 
sisted he could do nothing, he was finally prevailed on 
to leave powders which would alleviate the distress, and 
went away, promising to return the next morning. 
He reached the hospital before the doctor, who came 
back late, having by prompt and continued measures 
succeeded in his errand of mercy. But he would have 
to go again the next forenoon, and desired Chao Ju 
to accompany him. So, early on Christmas morning. 


CHRISTMAS JOY AND SORROW 


107 


he started on his call, to be ready to go with the doctor 
later. 

Snow had fallen in the night. On temple roof, and 
garden wall and filthy street the white mantle lay like 
the purity of the new creation. No one was abroad. 
The steps of Chao Ju^s own horse were the first to mar 
its beauty. The air was calm and peaceful. The 
trees and bushes, in ermine robes, bowed in the dawning 
light, as of old the kings of the East worshiped before 
the cradle of the Light of the World. It was as if the 
Spirit of peace and righteousness sent from the Son of 
the Father brooded upon the face of the sinful, weary 
old world, covering all its defilement and marred places. 
The drowsy keepers of the city were swinging open the 
battered gates on creaking hinges as he rode under the 
arch. From this elevation he looked over the canal 
and the low-lying streets skirting it to the hills along 
the mighty river, joining earth and sky and forming 
gigantic pillars for the bridge of light thrown in horizon- 
tal beams by the rising sun, along which his warming 
power might pulse. He passed the government station 
for free distribution of rice to the needy. In the open 
space around it were hundreds of hovels thrown up in 
a day to shelter homeless wanderers or starving famine 
refugees from the north. Some were holes in the 
ground covered with reeds. Most of them were 
squares of matting, the middle curved up like the 
covering of prairie schooners, the sides banked with 
earth. Some lived under upturned boats, and one 
poor wretch lay in an excavation partly covered by 


108 


MEY WING 


the rotting remains of the coffin which had been taken 
therefrom. But even here the pitiful efforts of the 
shuddering snow to conceal the rags and squalor had 
resulted in softening and covering, and the quietness 
almost brought suggestions of peace. Not quite, how- 
ever. From somewhere sounded the peevish wailing 
of a sick child, and from under the corner of a mat 
crept an old graybeard and stood barefoot in the snow, 
shaking it from his ragged gown, which had evidently 
been his only cover. 

Chao Ju hurried on and found the boat, but no one 
was visible. In answer to his call the tutor’s head 
appeared at the opening from which he removed the 
board, and the young physician walked through the un- 
sullied snow and found death and sorrow under the 
cover. 

The spirit of the youth had returned ^^unto the God 
who gave it,” and the defiled, starved body lay on the 
floor where the tutor sat beside it, keeping his vigil in 
darkness, heeding neither the whiteness of the snow 
nor the brightness of the sun. He was wan and 
haggard, and, surest proof of heart-pain, the opium- 
pipe lay untouched where it was when the visit of 
yesterday was made. As Chao Ju stood silent outside, 
he arose and his grief gave unstudied dignity to his 
wasted form. ^‘Sir,” he said, ‘^1 thank you for com- 
ing. The dead is mine. He nor I have any claim on 
you, nor any in this great city. There is the potter’s 
field for him. I know not what for me. It matters 
not. I have brought naught but evil to those I loved. 


CHRISTMAS JOY AND SORROW 


109 


Now all are gone. Nothing remains to me but a 
maddening desire for the accursed thing, which even 
now is overcoming my grief, and soon I will have for- 
gotten him and all in its deadening, cursed, blessed 
oblivion.” 

He closed with a gesture terribly eloquent with self- 
loathing and despair, then, throwing his hands wide, he 
broke into the death-wail. But none of the occupants 
of his own or adjoining boats stirred or gave evidence of 
hearing his cry. He was a stranger, and it was no 
concern of theirs. But the disciple of the Christ whose 
birth was sung that day was stirred by divine pity. 
The man could not be stayed from his opium that day. 
After its duties were finished would be time to think of 
that. But he must have food. Calling the boatman, 
he left money for rice and meat and made himself re- 
sponsible for a day^s hire of the boat. Then he bade 
the living watch by his dead until he sent further word, 
and returned to the hospital. 

The snow was disappearing under the sun. Traffic 
filled the streets. The crowds of apphcants for aid 
were toiling to the rice station. A few were chatting, 
and joking even. All carried baskets or pails. If any 
had respectable clothing it was discarded, for that was 
an official reception at which rags were full dress. The 
measure of rice was according to the mouths present. 
Children flocked along. The big ones carried the little, 
or dragged them. If the blind and the lame could not 
hold the walls of ancient Jebus they could storm the 
citadel here. Old grandparents, too feeble to walk, 


110 


MEY WING 


came on the backs of sons or daughters. Under the 
tramping of many feet the purity of the morning dis- 
appeared, and the earth reeked with their misery, and 
its stench went up to heaven as a record of sin and 
degradation. 

The doctor was ready, and they started at once for 
the mayor’s yamen^ the building in which were the 
offices. On their arrival they were ushered into the 
mayor’s private apartments without delay, according 
to his orders. In a few moments the great man ap- 
peared, welcoming the doctor by a silent and deeply 
respectful bow, conducting him at once to the chief 
seat, on a raised dais, expressing at the same time his 
thanks for the timely aid for the son and his admira- 
tion of the knowledge and skill displayed. The doctor, 
before sitting down, mentioned his assistant. The 
mayor turned to Chao Ju with manner entirely changed. 
This was one of his own people, his inferior, of the 
mass accustomed to come into his presence with bend- 
ing of the knee. But since he came as the doctor’s 
assistant, demands must be modified. A few common- 
place pohte phrases were exchanged and the official 
formally invited him to a higher seat, but Chao Ju’s 
common-sense held him from presuming, and he merely 
bowed silently and stood in his place. His bearing 
pleased the great man, and he kindly bade him be 
seated, and called for tea and dainties for the three. 
In a few moments they were conducted to the sick 
man’s room. Here the doctor was in command, and 
his assistant was next to him. As Wang Da Ren, the 


CHRISTMAS JOY AND SORROW 


111 


mayor, watched, a growing respect for the young man 
came. He noticed the dependence placed in him by 
the doctor, and the deftness and accuracy in handling 
the patient and the instruments. By the time the 
treatment was completed he was ready to accord the 
student a share of admiration he held for the doctor. 
When they retired he again invited them to sit down, 
and seemed to desire to hold conversation. He had 
but recently been appointed to his post, and had spent 
his previous life in interior points, where he had not 
come in touch with foreigners. 

^‘But the great man is busy,’^ said the doctor, ^^and 
we must not take his time. Many important matters 
wait for his attention.’^ 

^^My little affairs can wait. You, too, are a busy 
man, and cannot come often.’^ 

Then followed a half-hour^s talk about foreign cus- 
toms and places. Finally the work of the mission was 
touched on, and Wang Da Ren expressed his desire to 
know more about their methods and aims, saying that 
he would be pleased at a fitting time to be present at 
some characteristic gathering to see how matters were 
conducted. ^‘For you know,^^ he said, ^‘we have no 
such gatherings in our customs. We have no public 
assemblages, and especially is it strange in our minds 
for men and women to mingle at such places.” 

^‘Wang Da Ren has spoken at an exceeding appro- 
priate time,” said the doctor. “This evening we hold 
one of the most notable gatherings of the year. It 


112 


MEY WING 


would give us great pleasure to have your Excellency 
present with us.” 

^^What is the occasion of the assembly?’^ asked the 
other. 

^^It is a festival held to celebrate the advent of 
Heaven’s Lord when He came to earth/’ said the 
doctor; and he explained the Christmas season and 
its meaning. 

The official listened with interest, and expressed a 
warm desire to be present should his engagements 
permit. 

The afternoon was fully occupied in various ways. 
Once, when Chao Ju went to the chapel to see about 
some matter of preparation for the evening, he en- 
countered Mey Wing. But she avoided any direct 
conversation, staying in the girls’ corner. But that 
was a point I could not but see. She always appeared 
constrained when he was around. He hastened away, 
and kept busy at the hospital the rest of the day. He 
sent a messenger to Li, the tutor at the boat, asking 
him to come to the hospital at seven o’clock for a 
special reason, and took supper with his uncle and 
mother in her rooms. This was an unusual pleasure, 
for all were busy workers, and rarely could get away 
at the same time. 

The chapel would seat comfortably about a hundred 
and fifty, but that evening not fewer than three hun- 
dred were crowded in. The outsiders had heard rumors 
of some wonderful matter, and came in force. Soldier 
policemen were there to keep order. The pupils who 


CHRISTMAS JOY AND SORROW 


113 


were not helping in the exercises were in the gallery 
with teachers and mothers. A huge tree, resplendent 
with candles and colored candies, occupied the young 
men’s corner. The other front corner had the organ, 
with Mey Wing as organist, and the older girls as 
leaders of the singing. The young men had front 
seats on the other side, and helped to keep the music 
up. The ushers were older men, whose gray hairs gave 
them authority. But it was difficult to control the 
noisy, crowding, curious mass, and the leaders were 
in much doubt as to the outcome of the evening. 

The opening number was a hymn. As the notes of 
the organ arose there was a momentary hush of surprise 
and wonder. But when the hymn was started a babel 
of exclamations arose from the strangers, who composed 
half the audience. They rose in their places, and some 
began to stand on their seats in the endeavor to see. 

Where do the sounds come from?” 

There, there! See that box. It’s a girl playing it. 
Is she a foreign devil?” 

^^No, just a native one. Hail just see that tall one’s 
hair. \^at color is it? Gray?” 

^^No, by all the witches, ’tis red.” 

Impossible! My eyes, but she’s an old one!” 

^‘What are they crying about?” 

Crying, you fool ! Don’t you know pigs* squealing 
when you hear it?” 

The hubbub drowned the singing, and just as a 

* The Chinese word for Lord is similar in sound to the word for pig, 
laud the people often play on the similarity in punning. 


114 


MEY WING 


break-down seemed inevitable, a cry sounded from out- 
side, and word was rapidly passed from mouth to mouth 
that brought a hush over all, as marked as the clamor 
of a moment before. Then came a scrambling among 
those in the aisle, a breaking away to left and right, 
and up the opening marched turbaned men wearing 
blue cotton coats with flaming axes and tridents. The 
cry became intelligible — Clear, clear! Wang Da Ren 
lai liao — ^Wang Da Ren is coming!^’ 

The preacher and the doctor hastened to the door to 
receive the Mayor, and escorted him between the lines 
of soldiers to the platform, where he sat through the 
evening. There was no more disturbance,' either out- 
side or in the building, and the exercises were carried 
through without a break. Wang Da Ren was in- 
tensely interested in all of what was to him entirely 
novel, frequently asking questions of the doctor as to 
the meaning of certain expressions or allusions. 

Chao Ju had made his arrangement with the leader, 
and kept the stranger, Li, by him during the evening. 
When the exercises were nearly over and the gifts had 
been scattered, he arose and told briefly the story of 
the youth whose body lay in the boat ; and concluded 
by saying : “We are glad this night, because we know 
of the coming of our Saviour. We sing, and give and 
receive gifts in memory of the wonderful Gift to man- 
kind. This young man died in his sins because he had 
not heard the gospel, and lies uncofiined and unwept 
save by this man,^^ taking Li by the arm and causing 
him to stand before them, “Now, I propose tha-t we 


CHRISTMAS JOY AND SORROW 


115 


conclude this evening by giving this man money enough 
to lay his friend away respectably. It will comfort 
him and please the Lord whose birth we remember.’^ 

While the collectors were passing around, Li remained 
standing near the organ, not knowing what was con- 
sidered proper in such strange surroundings. Several 
times during the evening Chao Ju had noticed him 
staring at Mey Wing, and had supposed it was because 
of her position as organist. Now, however, instead of 
showing interest in the money, he was again staring at 
her with not so much of admiration as of perplexity 
and wonder in his face. Chao Ju was suddenly struck 
with wonder also, for, though one face was youthful 
and fresh in its beauty and the other was aged and 
worn, there was a puzzling similarity. He could not 
say just where or how, but certainly it was there. But 
the old man^s stare was becoming annoying to the 
girl, and Chao Ju drew him to a seat on the other side. 

The money was counted and handed over to one of 
the elders, with instructions that he should see that the 
matter be properly attended to. While this was being 
done Wang Da Ren called Li and questioned him 
closely. 

Before dismissing the assembly the preacher asked 
the mayor if he had anything to say before he went 
home. It was a new position for the official, but he 
spoke eagerly. 

^^This is all strange to me,’^ he said. ^^My heart is 
stirred. Yoiu* new ways confuse me and my ears are 
not accustomed to your music. But it is wonderful. 


116 


MEY WING 


I know not your Jesus, but if He has taught you to love 
one another and strangers also, so that you give your 
time and your skill and your money to help them. He 
surely must be good. You are doing a wonderful work. 
I shall command my people not to annoy you. Now 
I want you visitors to remember that you are guests, 
and go away quietly. My captain here with the guard 
will remain and see that you do.’^ 

And he departed, thanking the doctor and preacher 
for the pleasure of the evening, while the choir took up 
the hymn, 

“Joy to the world, the Lord is come.” 


CHAPTER VII. 


THE SHADOW OF THE BUDDHIST AND THE 
BEGGAR KING. 

Wu The Lame had an elder brother who did not 
share his benevolent disposition. He had a tendency 
to get into quarrels, and cultivated it faithfully. This 
led him into difficulties with many people, and he 
seldom stayed many years in any one locality. He 
became a boatman, carrying passengers and goods in 
his boat on the Grand canal and on the Yang Dsi river. 
He knew of the removal of his brother’s family to 
Nanking, and once, some two years after the lame 
man’s death, he hunted them up. He then advised 
his sister-in-law to get some money by betrothing Mey 
Wing to some one willing to pay a good sum for her, 
and to let San Dsi go on the boat with him. Especially 
did he object to her connection with the foreigners. 
But his advice was not followed. He disappeared and 
was not seen again in Nanking until the New Year’s 
festival which followed the occurrences of the past 
chapter. He seemed more moody than before and his 
temper less under control. 

He found Mrs. Wu in poor health, and learning that 
Mey Wing was still unengaged he scolded violently 
about her being led by the customs of the stupid bar- 
barians instead of acting according to the immemorial 
( 117 ) 


m 


MEY WINO 


habits of her own country. He offered to arrange 
everything for her, and guaranteed to get a handsome 
sum out of the procedure, as Mey Wing would attract 
rich suitors. They could divide the profits and Mrs. 
Wu could have a rest. But she firmly refused to violate 
her promise to her husband. She really would not 
have consented had there been no such cause for re- 
fusing, for she, too, had come to detest the thought of 
selling so rare a flower to some home where she must 
meet coarseness and degradation. But she used the 
argument which would best answer him. Her firmness 
added to his anger, and finally he declared he would 
act on his right, as her husband^s brother, and control 
their affairs. The first step he would take would be to 
get a husband for Mey Wing. 

^^But, brother,’^ she said in conciliatory manner, 
^^you must remember she is not our own child, and we 
have no legal rights to bind her.’^ 

‘‘All the more reason, he retorted, “that we should 
profit somewhat by her now. A poor beggar brat 
thrown on your care by strangers and left there by her 
own kin! We would be fools did we not take ad- 
vantage of this chance to get something back for the 
expense and trouble we have had.^^ 

She chose to ignore the fact that he had done nothing 
for her. He did not think it worth while to consider 
Mey Wing in the matter, but set about at once to dis- 
cover a suitor with means. 

He was not well acquainted in Nanking, but knew 
where to go for information. He went on the street 


THE SHADOW OF THE BUDDHIST 


119 


and sought for a Buddhist priest. In a few minutes 
he met one, and accosted him : 

^^Good day, Lao Ho Shang ; can you tell me, if you 
please, where the Monastery of the Great Assembly 
is?^^ 

“The road is long, my brother, but ‘one cannot enjoy 
good food yet refrain from the expenses.’ If you will 
follow Broad Market Street till you turn into the 
Street of the Brazen Bell, then ask for the Phoenix 
court, you will be near the Great Hall. May your road 
be prosperous!” And he added, “The fish helps the 
water and the water helps the fish.” 

Wu dropped a cash into the extended palm and 
walked rapidly on. In about an hour he reached the 
court indicated. It was sixty feet wide and some 
longer, paved throughout with broken bricks set on 
edge. One end was open to the street, two sides were 
enclosed by high walls of business buildings, and at the 
other end was brick wall, plastered and painted yellow. 
On the wall were huge representations of ferocious and 
grotesque spirit guardians of the entrance in black. 
A large entrance pierced its center. Over this was 
written, “As he chants about Buddha, Buddha comes 
to receive him.” 

On one side was seen “Buddha’s eye and Woman’s 
heart on the other side, “A golden cord and precious 
raft.” On the large iron-bound double doors which 
opened inward was the couplet : 

“The light of Buddha illumines everywhere. 

Mercy clouds overshadow every place.” 


120 


MEY WING 


But Wu did not stop to examine what he could not 
well understand; he pushed in and inquired of the 
attendant who came forward : 

^^May I see your Father Superior?’^ 

^‘He is not at home.” 

have neglected to ask your honorable name.” 

Ah, sir, those who have gone forth from their homes 
and taken the vows bear no longer the names of their 
fathers according to the flesh. Your younger brother 
is known by the name of the Lord, the Ever Blessed 
One.” 

^^Ah yes! You, sir, have not yet taken the garb of 
the order. But who is directing the affairs of the hall 
in the absence of the head?” 

“The Most Reverend Bu Tien has charge.” 

“Will you please say to him that your younger 
brother has an insignificant matter which he begs to 
speak in his ears.” 

The attendant took his card and went away. In a 
short time he returned and invited the visitor to a 
smaller apartment, where he was met by a priest with 
shaven head and face. His long gray robe was full 
and spotless. Around his neck was a rosary of scented 
wooden beads, and his hands hanging by his side were 
covered by his flowing sleeves. As the two men met, a 
flicker of mutual recognition might have been seen by 
observant eyes. It was seen in each by the other, but 
by none else. Their greeting was a silent bow. Then 
Wu, remembering the presence of others, gave the 
customary salutation : 


THE SHADOW OF THE BUDDHIST 


121 


^^Good morning, reverend father 
The priest responded by another inclination and 
offered a seat. Then he called for tea. While this 
was placed before them the two parleyed in common 
phrases. But when the attendant retired, at a sign 
from their superior, Wu said in meaning tones : 

^^It is well, sometimes, to lose a name.^’ 

“Or to change a name,’’ responded the other, glanc- 
ing at the card before him. “I once heard of a Wu 
Ping I. I see my elder brother’s name is Wu Dsz 
Hsin. I suppose you could not have known my old 
friend.” 

“Your stupid visitor has a poor memory. But he, 
too, can recall some past events. A certain individual 
at one time received word of the death of a sister-in- 
law whose little one was left in the care of strangers. 
The sacred characters were piously burned at Buddha’s 
shrine lest they should be carelessly trampled under 
foot and defiled. The sister’s share of the family estate 
passed into the hands of the brother. The little one 
whose identity was unknown to all others disappeared 
with its foster-parents. The brother mean time was 
wanted by the minions of a magistrate, who foolishly 
listened to other accusations, and he also dropped out 
of the knowledge of friend or foe. Now a holy disciple 
of Buddha appears with the face of my former acquaint- 
ance, but his name is not Ang. Verily, eyes are not to 
be trusted as we grow old. But you, sir, are not con- 
cerned in such matters. Your unworthy caller has 
other affairs to speak of.” 


122 


MEY WING 


‘^Yes. What is it?^^ 

Strange are the ways in which the cunning spirits 
lead us! Just as the story of the brother and his dead 
sister comes to my mind, I am about to speak of that 
sister’s little one, now grown to be a woman.” 

The priest started, and as no stranger was present 
he made less effort to conceal his interest. 

^‘Well,” he said, ‘^continue your story.” 

‘^The four seasons follow in time. The little one 
has become a woman. My obscure brother with whom 
she was left has gone. But while my poor head was 
^washed by the rain and combed by the wind’ she 
^walked in the pomegranate gardens.’ Her stupid 
mother put her under the teachings of the western 
strangers and failed to provide one for whom she may 
carry water and grind grain. She holds a high head. 
Boys must be taught while children ; the wife as soon 
as married. It is time she learned how to obey. I 
come here because you will know where one can find 
a proper suitor. If I mistake not, a beggarly follower 
of the foreign pill-maker is looking that way. The sun 
declines as soon as it reaches the meridian. We must 
act promptly.” 

The priest paused a moment before speaking. Then 
said : 

‘‘Why should there be pretense between us? You 
are all lips and tongue to-day. Your many words are 
like the ‘drumming of frogs and the thunder of mos- 
quitoes!’ You mean that my sister-in-law’s child, a 
girl, is living in the school of the foreigners and is not 


THE SHADOW OP THE BHDDHIST 


123 


betrothed ; that you propose to secure for her a hus- 
band and fill your own wallet at the same time.’^ 

^^Your skull is not empty. But we must find one 
whose carriages and horses approach his door. If the 
matter is successful your shrines will not be neglected.'^ 

'‘I see. But your tea is cold. Allow me to call for 
some fresh brewing. You cannot stay? Well, then 
come again to-morrow at this time and we will talk 
further. 

At the appointed time Wu went to the priest, who 
told him that the desired suitor for Mey Wing had 
been found. He had made inquiries through a friend 
of his, a retired military official. Captain Rong, or Rong 
Lao Yie. The latter had brought a man who seemed 
to answer the purpose entirely. He was wealthy and 
willing to pay a good sum to any one who would secure 
him a handsome young wife. He was willing to over- 
look the fact of her connection with the foreigner and 
her unbound feet. All had been explained to him and 
he was quite pleased. The money was already in the 
hand of a trusted middleman, ready to be paid over 
when the legal formalities were complied with. The 
priest advised haste. ^‘Failure begins,^^ he said, ^^just 
when the supreme moment of opportunity is past.^^ 

An attendant was sent to bring the two men to meet 
Wu. When they came, the four men, after the usual 
ceremonious exchange of courtesies, sat down, and tea 
was brought in. The customary questions and replies 
gave them knowledge of each other^s name, place of 
residence, age and occupation, with some other minor 


124 


MEY WING 


matters. The stranger was Yin Dsi Ching. His re- 
plies were satisfactory as far as Wu could know, and 
Wu exulted in mind in the prospect of handling some 
of his money. When, however, they came to the exact 
amount of money he must give and its use, there was 
some disagreement. Wu wanted more than Yin 
seemed willing to give. 

said the latter, ^‘you want one to buy a bird 
in a dark cage.^^ 

^^But you,^^ said Wu, ^^want to eat fish and yet com- 
plain of the fishy taste. For so beautiful and accom- 
plished a singing lark as my niece you would not regret 
twice the amount asked. We are poor and my little 
one must not go to your mansion in rags or with empty 
hands. When you lift the veil your soul will be filled 
with gladness at the wonderful bargain you will have 
secured. Your house will be full of music and her 
bright beauty will warm your heart. In buying or 
selling, one wrangles about trifles. But in the matter 
of caging a golden pheasant, one cannot count the 
coppers.’’ 

But Yin still demurred, and the completion of the 
matter seemed uncertain, for Wu’s avarice and stub- 
bornness both were aroused, and he was fast losing his 
temper when the priest drew him aside and spoke 
privately. 

^Ht is not easy to catch a slippery eel with bare 
hands,” he said. ^^Can we not think of some bait 
which will cause him to fasten himself? Is the girl 
really as beautiful as you say?” 


THE SHADOW OF THE BUDDHIST 


125 


have not spoken my words to eat them. She is 
fair as the moon riding in the clouds.” 

“Well, all our talk here is as dragging the moon’s 
reflection out of the water. The child must see the 
moon before he will cry for it. You will not fill your 
wallet by further talk. You may as well try to re- 
suscitate a fish in a dry net. Can we arrange any way 
to let him see your niece?” 

Wu thought for a moment, then answered: “Yes. 
They are carefully guarded as usual. But on the 
worship days she sits in front of their hall and beats 
the foreigner’s music box while they sing. Any one 
who wishes to do so may remain in the seat given him.” 

“Good,” said the other. And in a short time the 
matter was arranged, and on the next Sabbath morning 
Mrs. Wu was surprised to see her brother-in-law con- 
ducting three strangers, one of whom was a Buddhist 
priest, into the chapel. The decorous conduct of the 
service puzzled them. They had never seen anything 
like it. Even at theaters, the nearest approach to this 
which they knew, the audience listened or moved 
around and talked as it pleased. The singing and 
organ music were very strange, but they got a good 
look at Mey Wing. Then the preacher began to speak. 
He read first. They caught some sentences. “As a 
man thinketh in his heart so is he.” “Not every one 
that saith unto me. Lord, Lord, shall enter into the 
kingdom of God.” “The proud have laid a snare for 
me. I said unto the Lord, Thou art my God. Grant 
not, 0 Lord, the desires of the wicked,” 


126 


MEY WING 


The four men sat still. Wu listened with a scowling 
face. The priest with imperturbable, unchanging 
countenance, as near like to the placid image of Buddha 
as possible. Yin’s small, greedy, cunning eyes watched 
Mey Wing furtively, and although he tried not to show 
his feelings, the priest knew that they would get their 
price from him. 

Rong showed a different manner. He listened to 
the preacher’s message and seemed to forget all else. 
Once he spoke aloud, ^‘Yes, that is true,” then con- 
trolled himself and remained quiet but intent. Mey 
Wing, unconscious of the fate hanging over her, sat 
serene as usual, and received food for her soul from 
the service of God in His own house. And the Spirit 
brooded over all, working out the mystery of the King- 
dom amid sin and simple faith. 

After the service the four men went away to a tea- 
house, not one of the cheap sort where their tea would 
cost half a cent for each and all the tables were in one 
large room, but to a more expensive house, in the 
fashionable row along the canal. They secured a 
private apartment on the second floor. One side was 
open to the sun and overlooked the water. This was 
in harmony with the importance and the sentiment of 
the matter to be discussed. Their tea cost a cent a 
bowl. They were practised bargainers, all of them, and 
avoided the business topic ; each one wishing to seem 
indifferent as to the outcome, while secretly burning 
to have done with it. 

They discoursed pn the beauty of the loca-tion and 


THE SHADOW OF THE BUDDHIST 


127 


recalled other picturesque and pleasant places which 
one or the other had visited. Wu told of the sacred 
mountains, made famous by association with the name 
of the Master in his native province of Shan Tung, and 
of the thousands who climbed its bare sides when the 
Emperor^s representatives offered the annual sacrifice. 
The priest spoke of his pilgrimage to the far west, to 
where, in the fastnesses of the vast Himalayas, Mount 
Omi reared its snow-capped head; of its groves and 
mighty forests, its stone-paved, weary ways, its 
shrines and holy temples where thousands of tonsured 
neophytes studied and recited the ancient Vinayas and 
the Sutras, the law and the discourses of the Buddha 
of the Western Heaven, the instructor of gods and men 
seeking to reach into the Long Abiding of the Nirvana ; 
of how the Shramana dwelling there above the clouds 
and mists seek by suffering and denial to enter into the 
cloudless heavens. Rong Lao Yie deprecatingly ob- 
served that his travels had not led him to so noted spots 
as those mentioned by his elder brothers, but their 
surroundings called to mind the beauties of Soochow 
and its Water Street and its richly furnished canal- 
boats; and again Hang Chow was recalled. He de- 
scribed the West Lake of the latter with its miniature 
islands covered with temples and pagodas and summer 
homes, all mirrored in the limpid depths of its waters ; 
how the rippling of its tiny wavelets formed an ever- 
changing kaleidoscope of blue sky, and white, gray and 
red buildings and green trees, 


128 


MEY WING 


'^Certainly, brothers/^ he said, above is Heaven, 
but below are Hang and Soo.” 

Yin would have added his contribution and alluded 
to a trip he had taken to the Tauist headquarters, when 
Wu took advantage of slowness of phrase to interrupt 
in courteous manner : 

Truly the Three Doctrines are excellent and all 
flourish under the benign permission of the Son of 
Heaven, but the heretical teachings of the Western 
ignoramuses are detestable. Would that my insignifi- 
cant niece were out from their influence ! The poetical 
words of Rong Lao Yie remind me of another couplet : 

“ ‘The silver moon swings overhead, 

Pensive and alone I sit.’ 

^^Our distinguished friend Yin will recognize, I am 
sure, the force of that. When we can perform a meri- 
torious deed and at the same time bring the glancing 
lilies into the lonely halls of his stately home, surely 
we should not delay over trifles. 

And the bargaining was on. Wine-cups succeeded 
the tea-bowls before it was finished. The sun sank 
toward the west. The shadows of the houses lining 
the canal obscured the outlines in the dark corners. 
But it was three against one. It was beauty against 
money, and for once in his sordid life money was out- 
classed in the vulgar cesspool of Yin’s desires. The 
agreements he finally signed conveyed to Wu and his 
associates a goodly sum of silver dross and to himself 
the person of Mey Wing, a beautiful body enshrining a 


THE SHADOW OF THE BUDDHIST 


129 


spirit made in divine likeness. He gloated over the 
thought of an early consummation of the affair, and 
Wu promised to deliver the goods within a few weeks, 
for his hands itched to feel Yin’s money. 

When they passed out into the main room of the 
restaurant, they found it crowded with men, sitting at 
the tables or standing between them, drinking, eating, 
talking, gesticulating or listening to a speaker who stood 
on a box at one end of the floor. They caught some of 
the words spoken around them as they stood to find 
the cause of the unusual hubbub. 

“It is not best to attack magic except with magic,” 
said one. “But there are wise ones within the four 
seas as well as beyond.” 

At another table they heard: “The square houses 
of the foreigners are built like towers. And there are 
hollow spaces under the floors and the great-uncle of 
my son’s wife very nearly fell in at one time. He felt 
the floor give under his feet as he was there one day. 
If he had fallen in who knows what might have hap- 
pened him or how he would have got out? He was 
frightened dead, and of course has never gone near 
them since.” 

“I have heard,” said another, “that they keep their 
treasures in there.” 

“More like,” said a third, “the bones of some of the 
many lost children of whom we hear would be found 
in such places.” This was said in a covert tone by 
one with an evil look, who was himself not above sus- 
picion as a purveyor of human bodies. But the by- 


130 


MEY WING 


slanders chose to forget this for the time, and joined 
in thought with one who in awestruck voice said, 
^^Who knows 

wonder,” said a new speaker, whose face showed 
an admixture of caution with credulity, ^Hhat our 
Emperor allows them in his realm, when they are so 
unworthy of his gracious kindness.” 

“Who knows the Emperor^s mind?” retorted a by- 
stander. “ Some of his officers may be willing to accept 
of a golden salve for this sore, and the Son of Heaven 
is far away in his palace.” 

Then the general talk ceased for a time as the man 
on the box began to speak in a high-pitched voice. 
Most of those who listened sipped their tea or ate salted 
melon seeds while he spoke. 

“This is not the first time,” said he, “that these 
western despisers of ancestors have been known in the 
East. Many cycles ago, the books tell us, our little 
neighbors of the Islands of the Eastern sea suffered 
from a like incursion. Many of their people were led 
off into heretical practices. You know they also learn 
from our sacred characters and are instructed by 
visitors from the Flowery Kingdom. Not only did 
poison enter their minds and lure away their hearts, 
but children disappeared, women forsook their homes, 
and sick people whom these strangers visited in the 
guise of benevolence lost their eyes in mysterious ways. 
Finally the lord of those islands issued his orders ; the 
loyal ones obeyed and the wicked strangers with their 
wretched followers were put to the sword or cast from 


THE SHADOW OF THE BUDDHIST 


131 


the rocky shores into the sea and the islands were free 
from their pollutions. In our own great kingdom also 
the records are written of how the emissaries from the 
Roman Church came to the shores of the Middle King- 
dom and for a time flourished like the lotus buds. But 
the fortunate dragon turned his back on them, water 
and earth became unfavorable to them, and like flying 
stars they disappeared from among the children of 
Han.’^ 

The speaker suddenly ceased, for one had entered 
the tea-house whom all recognized as an emissary of 
the magistrate, and the allusions to which they had 
been listening were not approved of at that time by the 
city officials, whose aim was to put down any seditious 
movement. 

Wu and his friends sat down for a time at a table, 
that they might not draw attention to themselves by 
retiring just at this point, and Rong Lao Yie spoke in a 
low voice of rumors he had heard of troubles at some 
points up the river. The people were in conflict with 
the rulers, or the foreigners were rebelling against the 
Emperor and were poisoning all the water in those 
parts. He could not just sift the rice from the trash, 
but word had come that some foreigners had been killed 
by the soldiers, their houses burned and immense 
quantities of treasure and of dead men^s bones dis- 
covered among the ruins. These rumors were excit- 
ing the people of Nanking, and the magistrates were 
increasing their vigilance in measures to repress any 
outbreak. 


132 


MEY WING 


Wu soon left, and went at once to his sister-in-law, 
who was preparing for the evening service. 

Sister, let me have a little time to consult with you 
about our house. See, the eyebrow moon hangs over 
the west gate. Many such have come and waned 
again since my brother entered the long night. Still 
no steps have been taken to build up the fortunes of 
our family. But when the winter^s ice disappears the 
lotus shoots forth again. It is time that Mey Wing 
can make dutiful return for what we have done for her. 
I have to-day met one who loses his sleep and forgets 
his food because he has caught a glimpse of her fairy 
face. He is not a bare stick, but has his halls and his 
bearers. He desires to worship before the goose with 
your daughter. Let the beautiful bird find her cage. 
A lucky star directs its influences toward us. You 
have eaten the acid and received the bitter. Now you 
may have the three blessings.’’* 

^^Your words are pleasant, brother, and I would be 
happy to see Mey Wing in her own home soon, for I 
am no longer strong. But who is the one to whom you 
refer, and will he meet her approval?” 

^^She must give her consent to so favorable a pro- 
posal. It is already east completed and west accom- 
plished. The red papers have been exchanged and it 
is for us to bring about that filial compliance with the 
wise purposes of elders which is becoming in a daughter 
of Han.” 

Great brother, you know I have pledged my word 


* Riches, longevity, and posterity. 


THE SHADOW OF THE BUDDHIST 


133 


that she shall not be forced into what she does not her- 
self desire, and I cannot consent to this arrangement 
until she has been consulted and has had an oppor- 
tunity to know of the one of whom you speak.’’ 

Wu’s anger was near the breaking-out point, but he 
controlled it, and expostulated for a time. The mother, 
however, could not be moved from her purpose, and 
finally the explosion came on. He raged and cursed, 
and finally declared that the contract would be ful- 
filled without her consent and without consulting Mey 
Wing at the time agreed on. In his fuming he also let 
fall something of the talk he had heard about the 
foreigners in the afternoon, and made indefinite threats 
about what would happen to the foreigners in the com- 
ing days. He left Mrs. Wu greatly disturbed, and she 
sent at once for San Dsi. He had gone out, and she 
waited anxiously for his return. After half an hour 
he came, and she questioned him as to any rumors he 
had heard of risings against the foreigners. He had 
heard very little, but that little was of a disquieting 
nature; rumors of troubles at up-the-river points; 
mutterings of discontent; whisperings of suspicions, 
nothing definite. But when she asked if he knew aught 
of a man named Yin Dsi Ching, he answered promptly : 

^^Yes, my mother, I have just returned from his 
house. Our uncle called me to take him there when 
he came out from his talk with you. Why do you 
ask?” 

“Your uncle has made an agreement to betroth 
Mey Wing to him without my consent. Who is he?” ‘ 


134 


MEY WING 


He is the last man in this city to whom I would wish 
to see her given,” responded the young man. ^^He is 
the King of the Beggars. He formerly was a beggar 
himself. No one knows his origin. He is said to have 
begged on the streets here years ago. Then he grad- 
ually rose through the various grades of the Beggars’ 
fraternity until he now is called their king and settles 
all disputes among them, assigns them their stations 
and beats, and is the official representative of the guild 
before the magistrates. He enjoys a good income. 
No one who does not pay his monthly dues to him can 
have a begging station in this city. But he is a cold, 
sordid, conscienceless man, greedy for money only, and 
is despised by all decent people who know him. Mey 
Wing had better die than become the slave of such a 
man.” 

^^Do you think, my son, that your uncle knows all 
this?” 

^‘He cannot help but know it if he has made any 
inquiries at all. Yin is well known over the city. But 
he will pay well for her, I assure you, if uncle can deliver 
her to him.” 

^‘But, San Dsi, can we not save her from him?” 

“I fear not. As my father’s elder brother he has 
legal right to control such matters. Can we not get 
help from the doctor?” 

^^What can he do? He may not break up our old 
customs nor change laws. No, my son, our help must 
come from God whom we have found here. Go and 
call your sister.” 


THE SHADOW OF THE BUDDHIST 


135 


When the girl appeared, Mrs. Wu did not think best 
to conceal the matter from her, but told her all, in tears 
and with loving sympathy. Mey Wing^s face flushed 
and whitened by turns as she listened. When the 
whole truth was before her, she turned to her mother 
in terror, crying : 

^‘Is there no escape? Will God allow this?’^ 

And the mother with sorrowful heart gathered her 
little flock together and knelt with them, crying to the 
God of the widows and fatherless : 

Father,^’ she prayed, ^Hhe proud and the evil- 
doer would destroy us. He has made the laws and es- 
tablished the customs, and there is no one to whom we 
can turn for deliverance but unto Thee. O God, Thy 
humble servants have trusted in Thee and Thou hast 
proved Thyself faithful in times past. Thou hast 
taken away our head to be with the saints on high. 
Thou art our refuge and our hope. Look upon us this 
night and work salvation from sinful man who would 
take this child of Thine for wicked purposes. Take 
us from the hand of the greedy and selfish man who 
would sell our peace for gain. O Lord, we wait on 
Thee, for none other can help. Let us not be ashamed 
before our enemies. And we will praise Thee and serve 
Thee through eternity. We ask in Jesus^ name. 
Amen.’^ 

Then comfort from God filled their hearts and fear 
was taken away. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

THE RIOT AND THE RESCUE. 

During the week following, rumors and whisperings 
and mutterings of discontent increased day by day. 
Tales of risings and riots, of burnings and booty, of 
danger, and even of death, came floating down the 
river or rolling from tea-house to tea-house along the 
roads toward the coast, gathering indeflniteness and 
volume on the way. The magistrates posted proclama- 
tions in prose and in rhyme, warning citizens against 
circulating seditious reports and against congregating 
in crowds to discuss the exciting news. But this 
added fuel to the excitement and increased the eager- 
ness to hear what was forbidden. The word passed 
from mouth to ear and returned again after traversing 
a circle, so changed in form that the ones who first told 
it did not recognize it as their own, but supposed it 
must be a second horror, and sent it to chase after the 
first in an endless round. 

Hankow was in flames, the rumor said. The people 
had risen in virtuous wrath and sought out the mis- 
creants who were seizing little children. Wails of a 
child in distress had been heard coming from one of 
the mission houses, and when the gentry demanded 
admission, that they might investigate, the insolent 
foreigners refused to permit it. Then when the gates 
( 136 ) 


THE RIOT AND THE RESCUE 


137 


were about to be forced by the impatient crowd, those 
on the inside set fire to the house, and escaped, borne 
over the city walls on the clouds of smoke. But the 
flames spread to surrounding houses and caused much 
suffering. Under the ruins of the house were found 
charred bones of sixteen children. The little toes and 
fingers of each child were missing. They had certainly 
been collected and sent off in some of those boxes which 
the foreigners sent to their own country containing 
curios, because they were jointed, whereas the foreign- 
ers^ toes were stiff. 

Wuchang also was in a ferment. But the per- 
fidious teachers of the Jesus cult at that point had 
taken refuge in the magistrate's yamen, and he pro- 
tected them because they gave him ten thousand 
ounces of silver. 

But it was from Wushieh that the most exciting 
tales came. A miserable beggar was dying there some 
days before. Of course no one wanted the spirit to 
haunt his house, so he was placed in the center of the 
widest street, that the spirit might easily get away 
when it left the body. But one of those wretched 
foreigners saw him and had him carried to his own 
place, pretending benevolence. A few days later the 
body was hastily carried out in a coffin and buried 
deep in the ground. No one had an opportunity to 
see it. Why this secrecy, except that his eyes and his 
heart had been removed to be used in enchantments? 
This explained beyond doubt why other graves had 
been broken into of late. The wrath of the Emperor's 


138 


MEY WING 


faithful subjects could not be controlled. They as- 
sembled by thousands and broke the foreigner's gates 
down. He tried to escape the punishment for his 
shameless ways, but was caught, as he climbed over a 
wall, with a boat-hook, and pulled down where, with 
spears, and tridents, and stones, and clubs, power to do 
further mischief was taken from him, and the body 
was left in the street as carrion. And from other 
places came similar reports. Humors of sinister 
events in the far north were whispered around. Li 
Hung Chang, the faithless earl, who had received so 
much of the foreigners’ gold, had put countless treasure 
on one of his own steamers and fled to France for 
refuge. An English gunboat, steaming up the Yang 
Dsi river to assist the imperiled ones, had been sunk 
by the guns of Wusung fort, and the remainder of the 
British fleet was in terror fleeing from Chinese waters. 
A French force had advanced from Tongking, but the 
leader of the dauntless Black Flags” had met them 
from Canton and driven them in confusion across the 
border. And the question came to be in many minds, 
though hardly any dared to breathe it, ^^Why are the 
foreigners permitted to walk among us as if these 
events were not taking place at all?” 

If the missionaries heard any of these whispers or 
received reports from outside they kept their own 
counsel and said nothing about them. They went 
about their work in the usual way. This tended to 
restrain outbreaks. On Thursday one of them went 
to a suburban point to visit a small school. Not far 


THE RIOT AND THE RESCUE 


139 


away was a large depot for free distribution of rice 
to the poor. The teacher of the school told the visitor 
privately that many ugly reports were being cir- 
culated, and that in order to precipitate trouble some 
evil-disposed ones had caused the word to go around 
that the foreigner was afraid, and in order to placate 
the people, had arranged to give a hundred cash to 
every one who would go to the school for it that day. 
The crowd had just then gone for rice, but in a short 
time the hundreds would be pouring back, and if the 
foreigner was seen in the schoolhouse there would 
surely be a riot. The visitor left at once, and started 
to make a wide detour in the country to avoid the 
throng. But he was seen and followed by a few who 
called loudly for the cash. Soon hundreds followed, 
until the way was blocked before and behind. No 
progress could be made. No escape from their im- 
portunity seemed possible. Gray-haired men, and 
women tottering with canes, and little toddling children; 
refugees from famine regions, professional beggars, 
the unemployed and ne’er-do-wells ; hungry, homeless, 
starved ones, needing the cash and believing the report ; 
leering, mocking evil ones who wanted only to crowd 
and torment the foreign devil : all pushed and shoved, 
demanding with outstretched hand the promised cash. 
Some kneeled in front, begging. Some from behind 
pulled at his clothes and knocked off his hat. An old 
toothless hag at the side seized his hand in her eager- 
ness that he should not overlook her. From some- 
where clods and small stones were thrown, pelting his 


140 


MEY WING 


face. There was no wall near, against which he might 
stand and face them. He tried to form some plan of 
action, but looked up and saw nothing but the blue 
sky; around him was the multitude in faded blue 
cotton ; and he thought grimly the whole outlook was 
rather bad. He did not feel afraid. He always real- 
ized that patience and gentleness were the means the 
Father would bless in dealing with such a crowd. But 
he was perplexed. The crowd was not dangerous yet, 
but it was like tinder ; some untoward accident or rash 
action might at any moment cause trouble. And many 
in the crowd desired that end. A sudden commotion 
caused a momentary apprehension. Those in front 
of him, walking backward, fell over some obstacle by 
the roadside. It proved to be a coffin covered with 
matting half sunk in the ground. He recognized this 
as the vantage-point he had been looking for. Mount- 
ing it at once he shook off the hands clinging to him, 
and held up his own in signal for silence. The clamor 
kept up for a time. More pebbles struck him, and 
some from the rear, thinking that the distribution was 
beginning, crowded desperately nearer. But gradually, 
as he remained motionless and all saw that he was not 
going away, the noise subsided. He had closed his 
eyes in prayer for guidance. The word was whispered 
that he was using incantation, and a few of the super- 
stitious shrunk back from his side. But for a moment 
he saw them not. He saw a swarthy multitude in a 
desert place and heard them clamoring for bread, 
citing Moses and manna as precedents. He saw One 


THE RIOT AND THE RESCUE 


141 


standing in the midst, not dark-browed like those 
around Him, but with somewhat of the fairness of 
heaven in His eyes. The look of sorrow and disap- 
pointment caused by their misunderstanding of Him 
was passing, and in its place came great pity and divine 
compassion. But the silence recalled him to the present. 
He opened his eyes and saw the hundreds of faces 
turned toward his. Avarice, hunger, ignorance, curi- 
osity, superstition, cunning, dislike, fear, recklessness, 
all were written on those living pages. If there was 
sympathy in the minds of any it must have been in 
those on the outskirts, whose faces could not be seen. 
But he knew that his times were in the keeping of the 
Father, and was blessedly filled with compassion for 
those who were as sheep having no shepherd. Yearn- 
ing to help them, he stretched his hands toward them. 
Some shrank as to escape his grasp. Others put out 
their hands to receive gifts. But he spoke in low tones 
at first in the intensity of feeling, then more loudly 
that all might hear. And those who never heard the 
message of the Christ elsewhere heard it there as he 
stood over the dead body, surrounded by the dead in 
spirit. There was no rising in new life from the coffin. 
Whether or no new hearts were granted to any that 
afternoon he never knew, but for half an hour they all 
listened. He told them of the lame man at the Gate 
Beautiful, and the gift of God to him. 

^^0 my friends,” he cried, too, like Peter and 
John, have neither silver nor gold to give you, but I 


142 


MEY WING 


bring you that which is far more costly, far more satis- 
fying.” 

Then they looked to see him bring out some rare 
gems, and began to crowd up. 

^^No,” said he, stand still and I will tell you of it.” 
And he told them of how Jesus fed the five thousand 
with bread and fishes, and how, when that satisfied them 
not. He gave Himself, opening the gates of heaven 
before their gaze. The leering, mocking ones saw that 
their power for bad had passed. 

^^Oh, come on, he’s preaching! Why stand gaping 
and listen to his crazy words?” 

And they crowded out. 

Some followed. Some, loth to give up the hope of 
money, remained. Others, held by the story and the 
love in the man’s tones and face, were drawn as to a 
magnet. The winnowing fan of the Spirit separated 
them until, as the sun was getting low in the west, he 
bade them good day, and stepping down he walked 
quietly through their midst. An old woman, lame and 
nearly blind, ragged and starved, touched him as he 
passed, still asking alms. 

^^Yes, great mother,” he said gently, ^^what I have 
you shall take. Have a good supper and may God’s 
dear Son grant you His peace.” 

To others who started forward he said, ^^No, I have 
nothing more now. Peace be with you,” and went on 
homeward. 

Meantime through the city the rumors spread and the 
mutterings grew louder. Excitement flared when it 


THE RIOT AND THE RESCUE 


143 


was reported that a foreigner had been mobbed in the 
suburb. Wu and his associate conspirators met one 
day to talk over the prospects of getting possession of 
Mey Wing. The growing feeling against the strangers 
suited them exactly. 

^‘If this matter comes to a head/^ said they, ^^she will 
not hide behind their accursed walls much longer.’^ 
And Wu among the boatmen, the priest among devout 
Buddhists, Yin among the beggar guild, they swelled 
the volume of insinuations and suggestions. 

Mrs. Wu had broken down under the excitement and 
worry, and had been persuaded to rest and have treat- 
ment in the hospital. There she was free from the 
persecutions of her brother-in-law, but she was fearful 
each time that Mey Wing walked the square from 
school to hospital, lest she should be carried away by 
some ruse. Thus the week passed and another Sabbath 
came. 

The great city did not know God^s purpose of rest 
for its myriads. But the Christians gathered as usual 
for worship and instruction. No disturbances occurred 
in the churches, but the street chapels were not opened 
in the afternoon, because of the uneasy crowds on the 
main avenues. The missionaries, representing four de- 
nominations, all gathered from their various work in 
the afternoon for prayer and consultation. Not in 
word or feature was any fear shown. Earnestness 
there was, and some discussion as to the proper course 
to follow. While they were together came a communi- 
cation from the Consul General at Shanghai, advising 


144 


MEY WING 


a withdrawal to the seacoast until the wave of dis- 
turbances should have passed over the section. None 
liked to act on the suggestion. But it was a grave 
matter to disregard such communications. In such 
case, if trouble should occur, lives be lost or property 
destroyed, they would be blamed for foolhardiness, 
and the assistance of the home government's repre- 
sentatives in obtaining redress would be difficult to 
obtain. Besides, it seemed possible that their presence 
in the city was an irritant, and it might be wise to go 
away quietly for a few days or weeks. But some had 
better stay to look after matters of emergency. After 
a generous rivalry as to who should remain, it was 
decided that three men should stay and the others with 
all the women and children should go on the following 
day. 

That evening all of the pupils who had homes near 
by to which they could be sent were quietly scattered. 
Consultations with native helpers, packing of boxes 
and other arrangements occupied most of the night. 
In the early morning, with as little demonstration as 
possible, they repaired by various roads to the steamer 
wharves on the river-side and embarked for Shanghai. 
Mey Wing went to stay by her mother in the hospital 
until further plans would become necessary. 

But watchful eyes had noted the movements, and, 
like fire in dry prairie-grass, the news spread all over 
the city that the Westerners had gone, carrying with 
them, it was added, all their curios and treasure. Some 
said that they had been so frightened that they left 


THE RIOT AND THE RESCUE 


145 


much of value behind and the houses were unpro- 
tected. Then the excitement broke forth and the 
bounds of law and order were forgotten in the rush. 
Mobs assembled at each separate missionary com- 
pound, intent on curious inspection and loot. But the 
presence of the three men, who took care to let them- 
selves be seen, plainly disconcerted them. They did 
not know how many more there might be. But at 
Beh Men Chiao there was work for women and girls 
only, in charge of single ladies, and all were gone. 
There the first breach was made. Walls were scaled 
and gates burst. Doors were forced and buildings 
ransacked, and finally attempts were made to burn 
them, but these events occupied some hours. Mean- 
while, messengers hastened to the city officials, and 
after some delay the head of police with a force arrived 
and scattered the fire-builders and firebrands before 
much serious damage had been done. 

More serious trouble was brewing around the hos- 
pital, a mile and a half away. Wu was one of the first 
to know the movement of the missionaries, and early 
in the morning he sought his confederates. 

^^Now is the time for us to strike, he said. ^‘We 
must move quickly, before the magistrates bestir them- 
selves and bring a force to protect these pest-houses. 
Reverend father, you must know many who are ready 
to assist in tearing down these standing insults to the 
holy faith. Your followers, Mr. Yin, would surely 
find rare pickings amid such ruins, more than they 
often have. I, myself, though of no influence, yet 


146 


MEY WING 


know of strong-armed boatmen who have suffered 
these years because of the greedy sweeping of profits 
which should have been theirs into the bottomless maw 
of the foreigners^ steamers. Boat-hooks make good 
weapons. For ourselves, our game is in hiding there. 
My haughty niece will soon be preparing our friend’s 
meals and he will warm himself in her beauty’s rays.” 

Cupidity, passion and revenge are strong motives 
to arouse evil men to action, and in half an hour from 
that time their crowds began to appear before the 
hospital. Stories of men who had gone in there and 
never had come out again ; of arms and legs taken to 
feed the dogs ; of eyes and hearts compounded into 
wizard pills; of secret rooms and stored-up bones, 
passed from group to group and became constantly 
more gruesome. 

Yin, in beggar clothes, was among them, and started 
his minions to tell of a child that had been carried in 
there that very morning under the influence of the 
foreign opiates and was at that moment in danger of 
being sacrificed to the foreigners’ demon. A beggar- 
woman was started through the throng, weeping aloud 
and appealing to them to save her boy from the fearful 
fate. 

Those not in the plot grew frenzied, and the others 
simulated it. Some sought to scale the walls ; others 
battled at the gates. Cries came from all sides. 

Where is the child? Let us get at this eater of 
men ! Drive out the haters of our holy religion ! Shoot 


THE RIOT AND THE RESCUE 


147 


the followers of the pig! Kill! Burn out the foxes! 
Tear down the vermin nest! Kill! Kill! Burn! KillT’ 

Stones were thrown over the walls into the com- 
pound, and some crashed through the windows. In- 
side, quiet and order prevailed. The doctor gathered 
his helpers and such patients as could walk into the 
chapel, and for ten minutes earnest prayers ascended 
to the God whose work was assailed. Then all the 
women and children were sent upstairs and the doctor 
prepared to send a messenger to the mayor for assist- 
ance. But how could he get the word there? Any 
one going out of the gate would surely be intercepted. 
San Dsi was inside, and to him the doctor intrusted 
the note, saying that he would open the gates and 
parley with the crowd, and perhaps in the confusion 
the boy could get away unobserved. 

The noise outside was increasing and the numbers 
growing. Plans were made for storming the gates. 
A party was advancing with axes, when suddenly the 
gates were opened from within and the doctor stepped 
out into view. A shout and then a silence ensued. 
Most of them knew him. Many of them had been 
treated by him. Scarcely one of them but had heard 
of his power and skill. 

^^Friends,^^ he said, ^^why are you gathered here?” 

No one answered until he singled out a man of some 
local prominence, standing not far away. 

^^My elder brother, Ben, will perhaps tell me what 
causes this disturbance/’ he said, 


148 


MEY WING 


Meanwhile San Dsi was quietly working his way 
through the mass. 

The man accosted shifted uneasily, but made no 
answer until the doctor spoke again. Then he an- 
swered cautiously, know not ; I just now happened 
along. 

San Dsi had reached his donkey and was speeding 
toward the mayor’s office. 

But my friend can tell me, perhaps, what these men 
were saying and what caused them to throw stones 
which endanger sick men.” 

The man knew that having been recognized there 
was danger of his being called to account in the future, 
and decided that his best course was in assuming frank 
friendliness. And he repeated some of the things he 
had heard. 

All within hearing were listening intently. The 
doctor thought a moment, then said : 

^^A headless snake makes no headway. Who will 
undertake to stand for this crowd that I may talk to a 
purpose?” After some whispered consultation four 
men were put forward. They were rough strangers. 
They were not the real leaders, but were put out as 
blinds. But the doctor’s point was to gain time, so he 
seemed to take them in good faith. 

Friends, will you tell me what you wish? If you 
beat a dog you insult his master. You are destroying 
my walls and breaking windows and frightening chil- 
dren. I come to ask you what is your purpose.” 

The men were nonplussed. Their purpose was loot 


THE KIOT AND THE RESCUE 


149 


and destruction, but they could not tell him that. 
Their minds were filled with the evil stories of the week, 
but as they stood before his honest, straightforward 
eyes they could not feel the truth of the calumnies as 
they had in the tea-houses and opium-dens. They 
pursued the usual tactics of their class and fenced for 
advantage, ignoring truth. 

^^You see, sir, there are many ignorant and rough 
fellows here who have heard evil reports of your great 
hospital, and they are excited. No one can control 
them. If we attempt it they would probably beat us. 
We would advise you to let us take you away quietly, 
so that you will not be injured. We have heard of your 
good deeds and would be sorry to see yOu suffer, but 
no one can say what will happen here.’^ 

While they spoke the doctor noticed that they tried 
to stand so as to hide from him others who were slip- 
ping in to cut him off from the gate. He stepped quietly 
over and placed his back against it, then answered : 

^^Many of these people are like the fishermen who, 
having caught the fish, forget the net. They have 
been fed and healed here, but now seek to destroy the 
place. ‘ Can you not speak to them and advise them to 
remember what has passed, and go on that we may 
continue our good work?” 

Their only answer was, Would you read a poem 
before an ox?” 

^^But,” said the doctor, ^Tf one kills another he must 
forfeit his own life. A bad deed travels a thousand 
miles. Would it not be better to be sure that what 


150 


mey wing 


they say has some foundation before they go any 
farther? Select five men to go with me and I will take 
them to every part of the hospital and they can see 
whether or not these evil things are true/^ 

Mey Wing and others, emboldened by the quiet, had 
ventured to approach the windows overlooking the 
gate and look out. Wu and Yin both saw and recog- 
nized her. They were impatient to get inside and 
reach her, and so when the four representatives came 
back to consult over the doctor^s proposal, they urged 
its acceptance. 

It would get him out of the way and open the path 
for an assault on the gates from which his presence de- 
terred the more timid in the mob. So another boat 
hand was added to the four, and the doctor led them 
in to examine the premises. 

As his purpose was to hold the crowd in check until 
help should arrive, he proceeded slowly and showed 
them everything, charging Chao Ju, however, to watch 
the crowd. The delay was exasperating to the con- 
spirators, and they urged, as far as they dared without 
seeming to take the lead, that the gates should be 
forced at once. Chao Ju noticed the stir with growing 
uneasiness. As a last precaution he remembered the 
box containing a manikin and pictures of studies in 
anatomy and a few bones which the doctor used in the 
class work with the medical students. He took it up 
to a little room near the head of the stairs, intending to 
lock the room securely, but found the key was gone. 
He returned to ask the doctor for it. As he passed an 


THE RIOT AND THE RESCUE 


151 


upstairs window he saw San Dsi urging his donkey on 
his return, accompanied by a man whom he did not 
recognize in the distance. He found the doctor and 
his posse at one end of the lower floor. As he received 
the key a sudden roar startled them all, and a tram- 
pling of hundreds of feet, the clamor of many excited 
voices told that the great gates had been crushed and 
the mob was flooding the central doors. At the same 
time San Dsi and the stranger, whom they now recog- 
nized as Li, the traveler found on the house-boat at 
Christmas-time, came in by a private entrance. There 
was no stemming the tide on the first floor, but a glance 
showed that some were headed directly up the broad 
stairway for the second floor. That must be pro- 
tected. Chao Ju hastily called San Dsi, and the 
stranger followed. They sprang up a back way. As 
they reached the head of the stairs they saw four or 
five men run into the women^s wards, but there was no 
time to follow them. They met the rush, and with 
voice and hands and feet stemmed it. The stairs 
were jammed with a solid mass of men who could not 
go back because of the pressure from below. A power- 
ful riverman shoved on up, shouting maledictions on 
the renegades who dared to stand for the hated foreign- 
ers. With his boat-hook he slashed up and caught 
Chao Ju on the face, causing blood to flow freely, 
and attempted to push on past. But Chao Ju^s big 
frame and athletic training were not for nothing. The 
excitement of the day, righteous indignation over the 
lawless invasion, and wrath over the blow gave impetus 


152 


MEY WING 


to muscle. He struck out sharply, and caught the un- 
guarded ruffian on the temple ; then, before he rallied 
from the shock, the young man lifted him bodily and 
tossed him over the heads of those on the stairs clear 
to the shoulders of the struggling mass below. In the 
midst of the melee, suddenly from outside came the 
sharp cry: “Kai, Kai; Wang Da Ren is coming. 
Room! Room!’’ And down the road at double-quick 
came the bearers carrying the mayor in robes of office, 
preceded by one company of soldiers and followed by 
another. At the same instant a girl’s cry was heard 
from the room adjoining, and Wu and Yin came out 
running and dragging between them Mey Wing, faint- 
ing in fear. Chao Ju’s wrath flamed afresh and he 
sprang towards them, but San Dsi in fierce bounds 
reached them first, crying, ^^Even a tiger eats not its 
own young.” And he grappled with Yin while Chao 
Ju seized Wu. Li caught the fainting girl as she fell 
from their grasp, and laid her on a bamboo couch in 
the hall, where her mother who followed administered 
restoratives. And again, as at the Christmas festival, 
Li stood and gazed on her fair face, oblivious to all 
else around him. 

Like leaves before the whirlwind the mob disap- 
peared before the rush of the rescuers, except those who 
were captured as ringleaders. Among these were Wu 
and Yin, who were turned over with explanations of 
their doings, and carried by the soldiers to the city 
jail. 

That ended the riots. In a few days the exiles began 


THE EIOT AND THE RESCUE 


153 


to return. After two or three weeks the work was 
proceeding as usual. From all the Christians went 
up fervent thanks for deliverance. But for double 
cause and with double gratitude did Mey Wing and her 
mother sing : 

‘^Blessed be the Lord who hath not given us as a 
prey to their teeth. Our soul is escaped as a bird out 
of the snare of the fowler ; the snare is broken and we 
are escaped. Our help is in the name of the Lord, who 
made heaven and earth.’’ 


CHAPTER IX. 

LI SI HUING INTERCEDES. 

When Li Si Huing, whose pupil and companion died 
on the house-boat on Christmas morning, had laid 
away the body, he had no home nor friends to whom he 
cared to turn. Relatives there were in the far-off 
north, and, if he had chosen to claim it, an interest in 
clan property was his. But long since he had ceased 
to feel an interest in either. His had been the part of 
the prodigal son in the far country, and bitter had he 
found the husks with which he had tried to stay his 
soul. There could be no welcome for him in the home 
of the boy whom he had in folly taught the use of the 
deadly drug, and whom all his love and bitter remorse 
could not win back to purity and life. Opium alone 
did not kill the youth, but it destroyed the moral 
nature and left him no will nor inclination to fight 
other habits of dissipation which hastened the end. 
The man^s grief was sincere and his loneliness was 
bitter. He could not easily leave the vicinity of the 
grave of the only one who for many years had mani- 
fested any affection for him. He found a certain com- 
fort in the sympathy of Chao Ju and others of the 
Christians who found opportunity to show him kind- 
ness. In addition to these, one other cause held him. 
In Mey Wing was an unexplainable but powerful at- 
( 154 ) 


LI SI HUING INTERCEDES 


155 


traction. When first he saw her on that memorable 
Christmas evening, he was spellbound with wonder as 
he saw in her face and bearing what irresistibly took 
him, unresisting, back to the brief year he had spent 
in his one earthly Eden. He had been a brilliant 
student ; and after he had taken his first degree in the 
government examinations, his parents had showed 
their pride by spending more than they could afford in 
giving him an expensive reception and outfit when he 
married the girl they had chosen for him. He had not 
known her, and regarded her coming merely as an 
incident in the establishment which gave him a stand- 
ing in his world. But that feeling passed in a few 
weeks. He came to love his beautiful, high-spirited 
wife as few men in the old empire love women. The 
serpent in their home was opium, to which he was a 
slave even then. When at the end of a year he left 
her to seek employ, it was in an unsuccessful quest 
largely because of the curse of opium hanging over 
him. His wife, too proud to remain a pensioner on 
his parents, followed him after a time, he heard, but 
never found him. His pride and lack of success kept 
him away for a year. Then his love forced him back, 
against pride, and she was gone. His brother told 
him that he had heard she died, a pensioner on strangers. 

Broken-hearted, crushed, he became a wanderer, a 
cumberer of the earth. Now this girl, the daughter 
of obscure parents in the south, carried him to his past 
in one of those mysterious grasps which prove the con- 
tinuous identity of the self. Habits, ambitions, fea- 


156 


MEY WING 


tures, — yes, the very atoms of his physical body had 
changed; but as feature, carriage and charm of his 
young wife were recalled by this stranger, the spirit 
responded with the same old thrill ; the heart that had 
no memory, responded to the spirit’s excitement by 
pumping hot currents of blood through the stiff old 
arteries till his head swam and the image on the eye’s 
retina blurred, but still memory recalled the old image. 
The fierce pain of loss, which he had not felt for many 
years, gnawed at the spirit till the flesh shrank from 
the savage burning. 

No one told him that she was not what she seemed to 
be, but her presence completed the chain that held 
him to Nanking. Under Chao Ju’s advice, and con- 
strained by the experiences through which he had 
passed, he went into the hospital to take treatment in 
breaking the opium habit. The conditions under 
which they had come together gave Chao Ju an especial 
interest in the man, and he bore the expense of food and 
a private room during the time. Medical treatment 
and medicines were furnished free to such men. Li was 
forbidden to leave the room, except with the doctor’s 
permission. Opium was gradually withdrawn and 
tonics given to sustain the system, weakened by its 
terrible ravages. As the days passed the poor stomach 
craved the drug, and loathed food. Every cord and 
nerve pulled and pushed till he was sure his distracted 
head would either split or crush in. The whole body 
became one insatiable desire, and the blood seemed 
ready to burn itself out of the emaciated casings. The 


LI SI HUING INTERCEDES 


157 


crazed man could not be held responsible when he 
crept out one evening and pawned his pipe in a low 
opium den for a smoke. Some one told Chao Ju, and 
he got the man back before the craving came on again, 
and persuaded him to let himself be locked in while 
the battle was on. Nothing else would have availed, 
for when the fierce desire came on the man raved and 
holloed. He cursed and begged in turn. He piteously 
prayed that they would give him just one smoke to 
keep him from dying, and then tried to kill himself by 
choking himself with his own fingers. But after a 
time the appetite burned out, and after a longer time 
the system accommodated itself to food, and strength 
began to come. 

When he realized that he was a free man, as he had 
not been since youth, he was extremely grateful to 
Chao Ju and all who had rendered assistance. During 
the weeks of convalescence he studied much in Christian 
books and attended many Christian services. He 
came to have considerable knowledge of salient points 
in doctrine, and regarded it all as admirable. He even 
assented to the truth of it as far as he could see. But 
he looked on it as one on the outside. Imbued as he 
was with Confucian philosophy and ethics, he regarded 
the spiritual life as one apart from the interests of the 
intellectual man. It was right and wise to be moral, 
for no one could attain the ideal of the princely man^^ 
who was debased by low passions. It was right to be 
respectful toward the gods or spirits, for in understand- 
ing such matters did man show himself higher than the 


158 


MEY WING 


beasts, and certainly the world is nourished by higher 
powers. It was right to remember with reverence the 
ancestors, for through them has knowledge and ex- 
perience been obtained and our own being transmitted. 
But since it is impossible for one in this physical form 
to fully understand the mysteries of the spiritual ex- 
istence, the wise man meddled not with such matters, 
but gave his energies to the understanding of the 
ancients and the problems of the present day. So, 
while gravely courteous toward Christians, and ap- 
preciative of the ethical beauties of their system, he 
sought no personal experience, no part for himself in 
their Saviour. 

As his nerves became quiet and muscles strong, his 
old skill in penmanship returned, and he proved him- 
self anew the scholar who, as a youth, had given bril- 
liant promise. He was employed to teach a small 
school where some native books, some Christian books, 
and primary arithmetic and geography were taught. 
For a year or so his school was very popular. Then 
hints and rumors of dissatisfaction began to reach the 
missionary superintendent. After a time complaints 
were more pronounced. One day the old man who kept 
the gate and grounds of the academy went to visit his 
home in the vicinity of Mr. Li’s school. When he re- 
turned it was evident that his mind was burdened. He 
was a peculiar old man, but honest clear through, and 
the superintendent often talked with him about things 
outside, because he would not hide facts. The neigh- 
bors had complained to him of Mr. Li. They said he 


LI SI HUING INTERCEDES 


159 


was getting quarrelsome at times, and would drink 
liquor, and the gateman feared he would take opium 
also. This was the beginning of perplexity and trouble 
lasting several months. The teaching was well done. 
The weekly examinations showed lessons well learned. 
But it was evident that his old habits were returning. 
The liquor-drinking was not hidden, and signs of opium 
were seen in his face and manner, though the practice 
was concealed. The quarrelsome periods became more 
frequent. Remonstrance produced no change. For 
Li^s own sake and because of the good work he could 
do in the school the superintendent was reluctant to 
dismiss him. Many prayers were offered for him. 
But the complaints grew more frequent and serious. 
Some scholars were withdrawn. Finally it seemed 
that he must be dismissed, and with a heavy heart the 
superintendent decided to go out on a certain day and 
close the school. He intended to go early in the morn- 
ing, but was detained by some callers. While they 
were in the study Mr. Li was shown in. He looked 
excited and the superintendent wondered if he were 
under the influence of liquor or had some intimation of 
his dismissal. After the other callers had gone out he 
returned to Li, who at once drew his chair up to the 
table beside him. No smell of liquor was on him, but 
his face was working under nervous excitement and his 
hands were trembling as he said : 

received the message, teacher, and have come.^^ 
^^What message, Mr. Li?^^ The superintendent 
spoke coldly and was on guard. Who had been carry- 


160 


MEY WING 


ing warnings to this man? Li^s excitement increased 
and his muscles twitched. 

^^The message that came last night, you know, 
teacher. 

know nothing of any message last night, Mr. Li ; 
I sent none.’^ 

^^But the Heavenly Father, you know, teacher ; the 
message He gave last night. Li spoke in an awed 
tone. The other was puzzled. This was so different 
from the usual quiet, rather reserved manner of the 
visitor. 

^^Mr. Li, I do not understand you at all. You will 
have to explain your meaning.^’ 

‘^Did not the Heavenly Father give you word last 
night about me?’’ 

^‘No, not that I understood.” Had this man had a 
vision, or a drunken dream, or was he pretending? 
^‘Tell me about it, Mr. Li.” 

Li was troubled. He drew his chair closer, and said : 

^‘Yesterday I drank wine, and in the afternoon 
quarreled with the neighbors. In the evening I went 
out and smoked opium, and do not remember how I 
got back to my room.” 

The superintendent was more mystified. Li spoke 
with such simple, direct honesty of these things. 
Knowing well the disapproval of them by his hearer, 
he had always before avoided speaking of them and 
answered evasively when questioned. With increased 
interest. the story was listened to, as Li went on : 

^Hn the night the Heavenly Father spoke to me. I 


LI SI HUING INTERCEDES 


161 


could not open my eyes for the light. But I listened, 
and heard Him call me. And I said, ^Here.^ He said, 
^You are a sinner.’ I answered, ^Yes, Lord,’ and He 
said, H have a message for you. Go to Ho Sien Seng 
in the morning and he will tell you what do do.’ Now 
I have come for the message.” 

The listener was at a loss how to proceed. The man 
was greatly excited. His feeling was too intense for 
mere pretense. Whatever the experience he had passed 
through, it was a good time to deal honestly with him. 

^^Li Si Huing,” he said, “I know not of the message 
of which you speak. But if you received such word and 
come to me for advice, are you willing now to do as I 
say?” 

Whatever the teacher tells me I will hear.” 

^^Well, first, this drinking of liquor and using of 
opium must be stopped if you are going to be a man. 
Are you able to do that?” 

^^The Heavenly Father’s message must be obeyed.” 

^^Then you know how you have brought disgrace 
on yourself and have put the school and mission work 
into disrepute in your neighborhood by your course.” 

^^Yes, I know.” There was no formal, empty self- 
depreciation in his words. He used no polite circum- 
locution in speaking of himself, but simply and humbly 
acknowledged his fault. And this was a very unusual 
course for a scholar of the Flowery Kingdom. 

^Hf you are going to reinstate yourself and the 
school in the respect of the people around you, there 
must be full and public confession of these sins and an 


162 


MEY WING 


apology for them, and a promise of a different course 
in the future/’ 

Yes, teacher.” This was astounding. No attempt 
at evasion, or explanation, or excuse. Where was the 
pride and self-sufficiency common to the teacher of 
Confucian ethics? 

Besides this, my brother, do you not see that the 
worst offense has been against the Heavenly Father? 
Have you asked His forgiveness?” 

^^Will the teacher intercede for me?” 

Jesus Christ is our Advocate with the Father. Let 
us pray in His name.” 

When they rose from their knees, Li said : 

“Will the teacher suggest how I may make the 
public statement which he has mentioned?” 

After a moment’s thought the superintendent said : 

“The sooner it is done the better. Today and to- 
morrow you can let it be known that you have a state- 
ment to make publicly. On the third day, in the 
afternoon, I will come at two o’clock and the matter 
can be made plain.” 

At the appointed time the superintendent repaired 
to the little schoolhouse and found it full and a crowd 
standing outside of the door. A way was found for 
him to pass to the front. Mr. Li met him, asking him 
to be seated and refresh himself with a cup of tea. 
He received the cup and offered it to the oldest man 
within reach, who politely declined, urging the visitor 
to drink. He took a few sups, and without further 


LI SI HUING INTERCEDES 


163 


preliminaries raised his hand for silence and offered a 
brief prayer. Then he said : 

^‘Friends and neighbors, and all the respected ones 
gathered here, I am glad to see you today. For 
months I have been sorrowful on account of the con- 
ditions in and around this school, but have not known 
just how to remedy them. Please accept my apologies 
for what has happened. I trust that in the future you 
will not have the same cause to complain.’^ 

Murmurs of remonstrance ran through the crowd, 
and some of the elders ventured to say that they de- 
sired no such apologies from Ho Sien Seng. But he 
continued, “Mr. Li has a statement to make, and I 
bespeak for him your consideration.’^ 

Then Li arose, pale and trembling, but determined. 
He recounted briefly the faults of his conduct among 
them. He told of the message from the Heavenly 
Father and of the advice received. 

“I know,” said he, “that what I have done is con- 
trary to our own morality. It is contrary to Christian 
teachings. I have done wrong to Ho Sien Seng and to 
this school and to you, my neighbors. Above all, I 
have done wrong to my Heavenly Father. I have 
heard His message, and, with His help, I will never 
touch liquor or opium again.” 

He spoke this with uplifted hand and clear eye. It 
was no acting, but intense earnestness gave to it all 
an exceedingly dramatic effect. It produced in the 
mind of the crowd an entire revolution of sentiment 
towards him. Not many of them understood his 


164 


MEY WING 


reference to the Heavenly Father and the message, but 
they understood the conviction and honesty of the 
man. The superintendent spoke again : 

Friends, you are witnesses of what Mr. Li has said. 
You will also be witnesses of his future life among 
you. But before we part there is one more matter. 
You have wanted me to dismiss him because of his 
faults. Now he has confessed and asked your pardon. 
Do you accept his apologies? If he remains among 
you and accomplishes good for you and your children, 
it will be because he has your good-will and cooperation. 
If he succeeds in overcoming himself, it will be partly 
through your sympathy and encouragement. I place 
him in your hands. I must have some surety for his 
good conduct and for the success of this school. Will 
you become his surety to me?’^ 

Without dissenting voice the answer was, ^^We are 
his surety.^’ And certain elders pressed forv^ard and 
pledged themselves that they would be responsible for 
the teacher and school. 

And to my knowledge he has not touched liquor or 
opium since that time. His progress in Christian 
knowledge and character was steady. Soon he took 
his public stand as a follower of the Christ, and held 
it with the respect of his people. The ambitions of 
his youth returned to him, and with the added in- 
centive of acquiring influence that he might use it to 
advance the interests of the new kingdom into which 
he had entered, he renewed his studies of government 
examination themes. Some objected to this course, 


LI SI HUING INTERCEDES 


165 


saying that a Christian could not follow worldly am- 
bition. But he replied that if he sought a name and 
influence for selfish reasons it would certainly be wrong. 
But his country needed help and guidance. Being a 
Christian should not make a man less of a patriot, and 
he had heard that those countries in which Christian 
principles were followed were the leading nations of 
the earth. Were the people of China blind or were 
they afraid to admit the truth, that they did not see 
that their country, the oldest of the world, the greatest 
in number of people and in the antiquity of its civil- 
ization, among the first in size and resources, was far 
behind in real knowledge and power? His country 
needed Christianity [and Christian men in responsible 
places. On account of his wasted youth he could not 
hope to accomplish much, and he realized that it 
would be exceedingly difficult to maintain Christian 
character in public position, but as far as it would be 
possible he desired to contribute toward the intro- 
duction of Christian principles into public affairs. 

When the time for the triennial examinations came, 
he entered the halls with twenty thousand other 
students who had already taken their first degree. 
They came from every part of the three provinces of 
which Nanking was the capital. They were the in- 
tellectual cream of seventy million people. With their 
friends and followers they took possession of the old 
city for some weeks. 

The democracy of a country whose sovereign is 
absolute had its highest display at such times. The 


166 


MET WING 


viceroys, governors, generals, judges, prefects, and all 
magistrates of lower grade, whose tenure of office, in the- 
ory, depended solely upon the will of the Son of Heaven 
who occupied the Dragon throne, made great prepa- 
rations for these events, sought the favor and feared 
the displeasure of these who were regarded as the 
^‘gems of the realm’ ^ before the Roman mother pre- 
sented the Gracchi youths as her jewels. They came 
from the homes of and represented every class. Pov- 
erty or rank found no bar or favor inside of those 
gates. The judges were specially appointed by the 
Emperor from the greatest men of other provinces. 

The papers presented had no names on them, and 
they were not supposed to know whose work they were 
examining. True, corruption and favoritism have 
played a large part in the awarding of decisions of late, 
yet real merit generally finds its reward, and the boy 
from the farm or hovel may rise to the Emperor’s 
audience-chamber. 

Into this arena Li entered. For two days and nights 
the candidates poured through the gates and were as- 
signed their places. Each man had his brick-walled, 
tile-floored room, six feet by five feet in size, enclosed 
on three sides, open on the fourth to the long passages 
which opened on the broader streets. He carried in a 
blanket, food, pens, ink, and an ink-slab. Each man 
was searched after entering the gate, and any article 
beyond those prescribed found with him was contra- 
band. As far as the gate, friends or servants might 
accompany them and assist with the burdens. From 


LI SI HUING INTERCEDES 


167 


there they went alone, and the earhs son must put his 
long finger-nails in jeopardy by grasping with his own 
hands his baggage, and for once in his life his back 
must bend under its burden, unless he put little wheels 
on a box and pulled it after him. 

Then the gates were locked and paper and themes 
distributed. For thirty-six hours the hinges creaked 
only to give exit to those who were ill or who had failed 
or had finished the poetical essay, testing the writer’s 
style and knowledge of classical literature. Li came 
out from this, and after a day’s rest went in for the 
second test of a practical nature, relating to civil af- 
fairs. He came out from this somewhat exhausted and 
was not able to rest in the intermission, so that he went 
in for the third and final test, tired and weak. Rain 
had fallen and the streets and aisles of the unroofed 
enclosure were wet and muddy. There were no 
sewers. Filth and refuse piled up. The whole place 
reeked. The night of the last test was cold, and 
thousands slept on damp bricks in wet clothing. Fever, 
diarrhoea, dysentery, cholera, exhaustion claimed their 
own. If the sick realized it before too late, they were 
allowed to pass out of the gate. But the dead were 
lifted over the high walls and let down with ropes to 
the street outside. 

All that night and through the next day crowds 
stood or crouched outside the gates. Many were 
curious or were peddling eatables. Most of them were 
friends of those inside, waiting to receive them as they 
came out (as the multitudes stand on the shore waiting 


168 


MEY WING 


the landing of the heroes who have braved hardship 
and death on the battlefields). We were uneasy for 
our standard-bearer, one in twenty thousand, battling 
for honor, holding the banner of Christian manliness. 
Besides, I wanted to see the wonderful procession ; so 
Chao Ju and I took our places in the throng to watch. 
All night long they kept coming, first in little groups 
of weak or discouraged ones. Later, small numbers 
of those who had finished were passed out. 

Towards morning the procession began to grow 
steady, a thin line in ones and twos, then increasing in 
width until it became a solid phalanx. Nearly all 
showed fatigue, being pale and disheveled. Many 
laughed and chatted, but more were silent and serious. 
As I watched through those long hours a new sense of 
respect for those men and the institutions which pro- 
duced them came to my mind. Nearly all of them 
were brainy, square-headed men, showing in their faces 
intellectual discipline which had developed strength of 
mind. Admit that their system is wrong; their in- 
formation defective, and their ideals narrow ; grant 
that they are superstitious and bigoted; — yet they 
come from a virile race of intellectual wrestlers, and 
the youthful West prancing in new strength has yet 
to learn the power of assimilation and endurance stored 
up in this ancient people. Versatility, in the East, is 
the birthright of the Japanese. Perseverance is the in- 
heritance of the children of Han. 

Boys there were in the ranks, precocious lads who 
had entered the ranks with the down still unshaven on 


LI SI HtTING INTERCEDES 


169 


their upper lips. Gray-haired men also, who had 
formed part of such processions since youth and still 
hoped to hand down an honorable name to grand- 
children. And the same variety was seen among those 
who waited outside. Brothers and fathers, sons re- 
ceived sires, and graybeards proudly and tenderly 
welcomed grandsons. Some of the students, haggard 
and weak, came supported by a friend, some borne of 
four, and one I saw carried on the back of a stalwart 
collegian. 

At last Li came, weak and sick, scarcely able to drag 
himself along. A stranger was kindly carrying his 
load and encouraging him on the way. We received 
him gladly, and Chao Ju at once called a chair and had 
him carried directly to the hospital, where in a few days 
he regained his strength. When the lists of successful 
scholars were posted the first ten did not contain Li’s 
name, and some of his friends were disappointed. He 
laughed at them. “Why should you look for my name 
there? I have wasted my years. If my name comes 
last of the two hundred who may succeed I will give 
thanks.” 

But in the next list of forty Li Si Huing showed in 
large black characters. Congratulations came to him 
from many sides. The mayor, looking over the list, 
questioned who this stranger might be, and recalled 
the man whom he had met at the foreigners’ worship- 
hall when the doctor invited him to the Christmas 
exercises. He was beginning to understand somewhat 
of the importance of foreign intercourse, and, learning 


170 


MEY WING 


that Li was in touch with the foreigners in Nanking, he 
finally invited him to a secretaryship in his office. So 
it was that when San Dsi went for assistance on the 
occasion of the riot, Li heard and returned with him in 
time to assist in the rescue of Mey Wing. After quiet 
had been restored on that day he called Chao Ju aside. 
A great deal of partly suppressed feeling was manifest 
in his manner as he asked : 

^^My brother, can you tell me anything of this girl 
you call Mey Wing?” 

Chao Ju told him briefly all he knew of her life in 
Nanking, and of the family. Li was puzzled and dis- 
appointed, and the younger man asked the cause of 
his interest. Li hesitated, then said: ^^She calls to 
my mind my youth and one I lost. I cannot under- 
stand it.” Then he added hesitatingly : She seems 
to be one in a thousand to make a man’s home bright. 
You are a fit mate for her.” 

Chao Ju’s face flushed, then clouded. He was not 
in the habit of speaking of these matters to any, but 
ever since Tao Di’s disappearance the question of her 
whereabouts and of his own course had perplexed him 
by day and by night, and he decided to confide in Li. 
He told him all, except the manner of Tao Di’s dis- 
appearance. Only he and his uncle knew of her 
presence in that boat, except the young men who were 
with her, and they would not tell. He thought she was 
drowned in the canal, and shrank from bringing scandal 
upon her name. 

Li thought the matter over, then said: ^^His Ex- 


LI SI HUING INTERCEDES 


171 


cellency, the Mayor, has power to cancel such an en- 
gagement and to appoint a guardian for MeyWing 
who can protect her from that scoundrel, her uncle. 
If you and her mother will give me the authority I will 
undertake to lay the matters before Wang Da Ren, and 
with the doctor^s assistance I believe both may be 
carried through. Of course there will be difficulties. 
Tao Di^s parents must be informed. You will all have 
to appear before his Excellency sometime. But I 
would advise you to try it.’’ 

Chao Ju was glad to think of a release from his bonds. 
But he could not speak to Mrs. Wu on such a matter. 
He got the doctor to speak to the Lady, and she con- 
sulted with the mother and daughter, and finally Li 
was given permission to approach the mayor in refer- 
ence to both matters. 


CHAPTER X. 

THE END, WHICH CAN BE READ. 

As SOON as an opportunity offered, Li fulfilled his 
promise and laid the two matters before the mayor. 
The result was that an early day was set for the formal 
hearing of the two applications. 

The secretary was also empowered to make prelim- 
inary investigations and summon parties to the hearing 
and such witnesses as were necessary to the cases. 

Tao Di’s parents were summoned. Wu and the 
beggar king were still in custody, and when it was dis- 
covered that the priest and Rong Lao Yie were the 
middlemen in their agreement concerning Mey Wing, 
they also were hunted up and given notice to appear. 
Mrs. Wu decided to have San Dsi, her oldest son, ap- 
pointed as legal head of her family, so that mother, son 
and daughter must be present, and Chao Ju would 
have to appear in his own behalf. Finally Wang Da 
Ren, knowing the deep interest of the doctor and the 
lady in these, their prot4g^s, invited them and the 
pastor to be present at the hearing as a matter of 
courtesy. 

When the nature of the applications became some- 
what known, quite an interest was aroused. The 
hundreds of secretaries, assistants, attaches, con- 
stables and other underlings, who, with their families 
( 172 ) 


THE END, WHICH CAN BE READ 


173 


and hangers-on, made thousands of people that were 
supported through this office, did not like this mode of 
procedure, for with the chief magistrate dealing di- 
rectly and promptly there were no pickings and ex- 
tortions for them, but the connection of the foreigners 
with the case gave interest. 

Li was especially interested, and since the prepara- 
tion of the matters had been largely left in his hands 
he consulted carefully with those concerned, so that 
he might be thoroughly posted. At his request Chao 
Ju told him about the last day on which he had seen 
Tao Di, and about her appearance in the dragon-boat 
race, but requested him not to make that public if 
possible, for the girhs sake, in case she should turn up 
again. The young man was puzzled by the surprise and 
great interest in this recital which Li manifested, and 
ventured to ask if he had any idea of what might have 
become of the girl, but Li gave an indefinite answer, 
asking seemingly irrelevant questions about the hos- 
pital at Wuhu. 

The case was set for one o^clock. The foreigners 
with Chao Ju and Mey Wing and her mother went in 
sedan chairs. At the outer gates of the great com- 
pound the Chinese alighted and walked up the long 
approach to the doors of the hall. There they were met 
by attendants, who, after some delay, admitted them 
and assigned them to the petitioners^ place. The 
chairs of the foreigners were carried to the great doors 
and their cards sent in to the mayor. In a short time 
a secretary returned and ordered the central doors 


174 


MEY WING 


thrown open. Over a raised, stile-like barrier they 
were carried to an inner court, where they left the chairs 
and were conducted into the private apartments of 
his Excellency, who met them cordially, and after a 
few words excused himself and passed out to the public 
hall. After a time they were ushered out and given 
retired seats where they could see and hear what passed. 
The room was a spacious one, and overhead, the ceiling 
was close to the lofty tile roof, which was supported by 
two rows of polished wooden pillars placed through the 
middle of the apartment. 

The scene was an animated one. Wang Da Ren sat 
on a raised dais, in official robes. Secretaries and at- 
tendants, also wearing long robes and red caps, sat or 
stood near. Rows of red-coated soldiers stood to keep 
back the crowds. 

A clerk called the case. ^^Your Excellency, the first 
case is an application for a writ rendering void the be- 
trothal papers between Chao Ju and Sung Tao Di.^^ 
^^Who is the secretary in charge of this case?^^ 

Li Sien Seng stepped forward, and, with a bend of 
one knee in salutation to his superior, replied that the 
matter had been referred to him. 

^^Give a statement of the case.’^ 

“Your Excellency, the facts are these: Ju Chao Ju 
and Sung Tao Di were, in childhood, legally betrothed 
to each other by their respective parents. The girl 
remained with her parents. Now, when the time has 
come when the contract should be fulfilled, the girl 
is missing. The young man, therefore, prays your 


THE END, WHICH CAN BE BEAD 


175 


Excellency to grant a writing dissolving the betrothal 
contract and allowing him to arrange another marriage 
with whom he can. The papers and witnesses are here 
in court, and if your Excellency so wishes, they may 
now appear.^’ 

Are the betrothal papers properly made out, signed 
and attested?’’ 

^^They are, your Excellency.” 

^^Are the middlemen willing to have the agreement 
annulled?” 

^^Here is the written consent, your Excellency, and 
they can be called to acknowledge it.” 

^^Are the parents of the girl willing?” 

^^They have not signified their consent, your Ex- 
cellency.” 

^^Are the parents of the young man willing?” 

^^His father, your Excellency, is not living. His 
mother and his father’s oldest brother join in the 
petition.” 

^^In your investigations, have you found any cause 
why the application should not be granted?” 

^^None, your Excellency, unless it be the attitude of 
the girl’s friends.” 

Wang Da Ren considered for a moment, then said : 

^^Call the applicant.” 

When Chao Ju had been cautioned as to his testi- 
mony, the mayor asked: 

^^Do you know anything of the whereabouts of the 
young woman to whom you are betrothed?” 


176 


MEY WING 


^^No, your Excellency; I have made every effort to 
find her, and have failed.” 

^^Why do you wish to have the betrothal canceled?” 

*^Your Excellency, the father hands down to the 
son and the son to the grandson. The father of your 
unworthy petitioner was cut off early, and my mother 
has but one son to look to. To whom will be handed 
down my father^s name if I wait all my life on one who 
comes not?” 

^^Well spoken, young man. Filial piety is the root 
of propriety. Call the parents of the girl.” 

Sung and his wife came groveling in, bowing low on 
bended knees before the great man. Pitiable indeed 
they were. Poor and pallid, ragged in clothing and 
emaciated in body, showing the ravages of lack of food 
and indulgence in opium. 

‘^Are you the parents of the girl to whom this man 
is betrothed?” 

“Yes, your Excellency.” 

“Are you ready to fulfill the agreement?” 

“We are, your Excellency, but the girl has dis- 
appeared.” 

“Where is she now?” 

“Alas, your Excellency, would that we might say. 
On the morning of the Dragon Festival she disappeared 
from our home. She was later at her aunt^s home, near 
the south gate of this city, and later she was seen in the 
preaching-place of the foreigners on the great market 
street, since when we have not been able to trace her.” 

A murmur which went around among the crowd told 


THE END, WHICH CAN BE BEAD 


177 


that this shot had its intended effect in throwing sus- 
picion on the friends of Chao Ju, in connection with 
her disappearance. 

^^Have you any reason why this application should 
not be granted?^’ continued Wang Da Ren. 

^^Your Excellency, your servants are poor and old 
and weak. Heaven has granted us but the one child. 
We have looked to her children to carry down our 
blood and to give us a shelter in old age. The young 
man found friends in those who come from a strange 
land, practising strange rites, recognizing not our 
sacred ties and books. We wonder not that he should 
wish to be released from mating with our poor little 
one. Perhaps he seeks for a household fairy among 
those of a fairer hue, who need not to look back upon 
such low ancestry. Where our daughter is we do not 
know. Sorrow has dwelt with us since she was taken 
away, and we have not known joy since the singing 
bird was taken from our hovel. But when we remember 
where she was last seen and reflect on how much he 
would desire to be released, as is evidenced by this 
petition to your Excellency, we cannot keep from our 
minds suspicions which we cannot speak, because we 
have no evidence. But we would implore the great 
man to look on us in pity, and, remembering our 
destitution, not to grant his desire, unless he pay to 
us such a sum as the eminent wisdom of your Excel- 
lency shall decide to be sufficient to lighten the sorrows 
of our lonely old age.^’ 

The mayor turned to Chao Ju: 


178 


MEY WING 


^^Have you anything to say to this?’^ 

Chao Ju saw that he must make the situation plain. 
He briefly recounted the life the parents had compelled 
the girl to live and his efforts to get her away, and his 
offer to fulfill the agreement at an early date. He told, 
also, of his seeing her on two occasions on the day of 
the Dragon Festival, and of her disappearance when 
the boat was overturned. This last-mentioned occur- 
rence was clear in the minds of nearly all present. 
They knew, too, that after the boat capsized all its 
occupants had been rescued but two, one of the rowers 
and the one who occupied the seat in the stern, whom 
all supposed to be a man in woman’s clothing. The 
outer clothing had been found floating in the water, 
but neither body had been recovered. A profound 
sensation was produced when the missing girl was 
identified with that mystery. In the midst of this, Li 
stepped forward and asked permission to present further 
testimony. 

Your Excellency, I had hoped that it would not be 
necessary to make public these facts concerning one 
who has passed away. But since the girl’s parents 
have made it necessary by their insinuations, I wish to 
lay evidence before your Excellency to show that the 
girl is actually dead and how she died. When the 
petitioner told me these facts concerning his last 
knowledge of the poor girl, it astonished me, because 
it connected her with some other secrets which I sup- 
posed were in the grave of one whose history it grieves 
me to bring up now. I had a pupil, who was to me as 


THE END, WHICH CAN BE READ 


179 


a dear son. He left home, and for a time was lost to 
me. Then I found him in Hankow, and started home 
with him. But he lies in his long home on the hills 
above your beautiful West Gardens. As he approached 
this city in a boat he told me of when he was last in 
this city and how he left it. He and some companions 
came to this city to attend the Dragon Festival. On 
their way they stayed at this man^s inn, and, finding it 
a convenient place, stopped over for a day or two. 
This man furnished the materials for drinking and 
opium-smoking, and compelled his daughter to wait 
on them, and used her petty savings to pay to them 
his gambling debts. By his ill-treatment he drove her 
from the home, and when they came on she followed, 
and finally, in the afternoon of that day of fate, met 
them by accident and entered their boat with them. 
When the accident occurred he was thrown into the 
water, but struggled to where he could reach a passing 
house-boat, and clinging to it was swept down the 
current. He finally managed to climb into the boat 
with the assistance of one of the boat hands, nearly 
exhausted from cold and a wound he had received. He 
did not care to return and face the excitement, and 
finding that the boat was bound for Wuhu he had them 
take him as a passenger. There he went at once to the 
hospital to receive treatment. He had seen the girl 
spring to the same house-boat when the rowing-boat 
capsized, but in his weakness thought no more of it 
for that day, and then hearing nothing of her concluded 
to say nothing, but wondered what had become of her. 


180 


MEY WING 


While he was in the hospital she was brought in by one 
of the ladies of the mission, and he heard how she had 
been found in the street, and from her ravings he 
gathered she had been in the boat. But he went on 
soon and had not heard of her. When I heard the pe- 
titioner’s story, at once I sent a messenger to Wuhu 
to make inquiries, who brought back word that she 
was received as a patient at that time and died some 
two weeks later and was buried, with a burial permit 
from the magistrates, a copy of which with other papers 
in proof of these facts are here for your Excellency’s 
reading. I did not present these facts earlier, for I 
hoped that it would not be necessary to reopen these 
sad chapters. I trust your Excellency will pardon me 
for withholding them.” 

This testimony produced a still greater sensation in 
the hall, and the current of popular feeling which had 
been running against Chao Ju turned against the 
miserable parents of the dead girl. After a brief ex- 
amination of the papers Wang Da Ren gave his de- 
cision. Looking sternly at the cowering man and 
woman, he said : 

“It is evident that you have grossly failed in your 
treatment of your girl, and deserve severe censure and 
punishment. But heaven has punished you. Un- 
pitied and uncared for by hands of children, you will 
pass your years. You may go. The proof of the 
death of the betrothed girl is ample, and no blame is 
attached to the young man. There is, therefore, no 
need of further proceeding with this hearing. He is 


THE END, WHICH CAN BE READ 


ISl 


free to seek a wife where he may. The papers will be 
preserved in our achives.^^ 

A buzz of comment ran over the crowd, and Chao Ju 
retired, while Wang Da Ren curtly said, ^^Call the 
next case.’’ 

The clerk rose again and read : 

^^The next case, your Excellency, is an application 
for appointment of a guardian for the person of Ang 
Mey Wing, and of Wu Wan Fuh as head of the house 
of his deceased father.” 

Li was busy giving directions to a constable when 
this was read. He knew that this case would be called 
next, and was prepared to answer when the mayor 
turned to him. 

^^Can you give us the status of this case, Mr. Secre- 
tary?” 

^Hf it please your Excellency, Wu Chuei Dsi passed 
away some eleven years ago. He and his wife and 
three children came from Shantung, and have no 
kindred here except an uncle, who is unworthy to have 
control of their affairs. He seeks to do so, and has 
tried to betroth his niece to another base one. These 
two are now in custody as ringleaders in the riot of 
last month, and it is to be proved that they incited the 
riot to forward their private nefarious purposes and 
seized upon the occasion to attempt to forcibly take 
possession of the girl against her mother’s desire. It is 
in order to escape these persecutions that this petition 
is presented to have the oldest son of the family ap- 


182 


MEY WINC 


pointed as its legal head. All the members of the 
family concur in its request.^’ 

This also gave promise of interesting developments, 
and the spectators leaned over each other in silence, 
waiting to hear. 

^‘Call the petitioners.’^ 

They came forward — mother, son, and two daughters. 
San Dsi had not received much education. He had 
been the mainstay in support of the family, and his 
dress and speech showed the lack of such culture, but 
he was an honest, good lad, and his face proved it. 
His mother trusted him and was proud of him. He 
was developing the same kindly, upright character that 
his father had before him, and had in addition the 
moral freedom of vision which came from the sweeping 
away of superstitions, and from Christian conceptions 
of life. The daughters shrank from the publicity, but 
bore themselves bravely and modestly, bringing credit 
to their training. The beauty of Mey Wing caused 
many exclamations of surprise and appreciation, but 
she appeared unconscious of it all. 

In response to Wang Da Ren’s questions, Mrs. Wu 
recounted the main points of their life, giving explicitly 
her husband’s directions that Mey Wing should not be 
betrothed without her own consent thereto. Then she 
told of the proceedings of her husband’s brother in dis- 
regarding her husband’s word and seeking to betroth 
her to Yin Dsi Ching, and of the attempt to carry her 
off by force on the day of the riot. 

Several others came, who told of the activity on the 


THE END, WHICH CAN BE BEAD 


183 


part of Wu and the priest and Yin in fomenting and 
causing the riot of that day. Finally the two con- 
tracting parties in the agreement purporting to be a 
betrothal between Yin and Wu Mey Wing, and the two 
middlemen, the priest and Rong Lao Yie, were called 
in. It was noticeable that the priest remained as far 
from the mayor as possible, and that his face was well 
obscured in the voluminous folds of his priest^s robe. 
Wu was examined closely concerning the part he had 
taken. He denied having any part in causing the 
riots. But he admitted freely that he had made the 
agreement concerning Mey Wing, and appealed to 
Wang Da Ren as to the law in such cases. Was not he, 
the only surviving brother of the dead husband and 
father, entitled to take his place legally in controlling 
their affairs? And the mayor was forced, against his 
wishes in this matter, to admit that he was right in his 
claim. He called for the agreement and read it over. 
It was perfectly correct in form and language, and 
Mey Wing^s heart seemed as lead in view of the prospect 
before her, while Chao Ju^s beat like a trip-hammer in 
his excitement and indignation. 

What was his freedom worth to him now? He had 
longed for it for years, and now it had come in so re- 
markable a way only to be worthless to him, as he found 
Mey Wing trapped in cruel toils more fearful than those 
from which he had escaped. Fierce revolt against the 
injustice of the whole system filled him with bitterness. 
The mayor read the agreement aloud, showing how 
closely it bound Wu Mey Wing to Yin Dsi Ching. 


184 


MEY wma 


Then a light suffused Mrs. Wu^s pale face, and she 
stepped forward and kneeled in front of the great man. 

“ Well,^^ he said, surprised at her act, ^^have you any- 
thing to say?^^ 

Thanks be to our Lord Jehovah, who forsaketh not 
His little ones. Even a sparrow falleth not to the 
ground without His knowledge, and we are of more 
value in His sight than many sparrows. He taketh 
the wise in their own craftiness and overthroweth the 
plots of the evil man. Your Excellency, that paper 
does not at all bind her whom ye call my daughter. 
There is no Wu Mey Wing. 

This strange move and declaration caused the third 
sensation of the day, and the concourse crowded for- 
ward to hear and see the denouement. Wang Da Ren 
turned and gave strict commands to preserve order 
and silence ; then, with perplexed face, said, Woman, 
what is the meaning of this word?” 

^Hf your Excellency would deign to examine the 
petition presented to-day by your servants, it would 
be seen that it asks that a guardian be appointed for 
the person of Ang Mey Wing. If there is a Wu Mey 
Wing your handmaid knows her not.” 

As she mentioned the girhs true name both the mayor 
and Li started visibly, while the priest sought to retire 
still farther behind others gathered there. The ex- 
pression of triumph on Wu’s face changed to one of 
doubt. Li seemed changed to yellow stone, and he 
did not move a muscle during the proceeding imme- 
diately following. The mayor stared for a moment at 


THE END, WHICH CAN BE BEAD 


185 


the girl, then recalling himself called for the petition, 
and after scanning it closely, said : 

“How now? Is not this girl, then, your daughter?’^ 

“She has been reputed to be, your Excellency, by all 
who know us here, and she has grown up as such in my 
home. But in truth she is not.’^ And she repeated 
rapidly the facts regarding Mey Wing’s mother, al- 
ready given in a former chapter. 

The mayor listened with marked interest, although 
not with the rigidity of strained attention shown in 
Li’s attitude. At the close of her recital the latter 
suddenly seemed to wake, and, starting forward, he, 
too, kneeled beside the woman, to the astonishment of 
all present. 

“Your Excellency,” he said, “has not yet heard all 
of this strange case. Wonderful it is that we have met 
here. I, too, your servant, have a confession to make, 
and I crave in advance your Excellency’s forbearance. 
There is a part of the book of my life which I had sup- 
posed was past and closed. But it is now opened again 
by the story of this woman, and my heart bleeds anew. 
If your Excellency will permit, I would tell a part of it, 
for it concerns the case now before you. That poor 
mother who left her child to the world was the wife of 
your servant.” 

Again the hum of comment filled the room as those 
in front repeated the words to those in the rear, and all 
exclaimed in wonder at the developments. It re- 
quired all the authority of the constables and soldiers 
to restore silence so that the examination might pro- 


186 


MET WING 


ceed. Mey Wing, with parted lips and startled eyes, 
heard with bated breath this astounding claim. What 
new perplexity and confusion was coming into her life? 
Who was she? Wu, Ang, or Li? But Wang Da Ren 
voiced part of her question. 

^^Is then the girhs name neither Ang nor Wu? Or 
are we all possessed this day by the spirits of confusion? 
Explain yourself. Why do you claim that poor woman 
to be your wife when you are known as Li?’^ 

^^Your Excellency, your unworthy servant is that 
unhappy man who, pursued by the fiend of the opium- 
pipe, failed of realizing the promise of youth. When I 
returned to seek the light of my home, and my brother 
told me he had heard of her death, penniless among 
strangers, no word reached me of her little one left 
behind. Bitterness filled my heart. Father and 
mother had gone to the spirit land ; my brother, who 
managed all the property, upbraided me with wasting 
our patrimony, and, crazed with grief and despair, I 
left home, saying I would disgrace and burden them no 
more. I sought to forget my past and bury myself, 
and started anew, homeless and hopeless, under the 
assumed name of Li. But heaven has forgiven me. 
The Son of God has sought me, a lost wanderer ; has 
freed me from the bonds of slavery to opium and drink, 
has given me new manhood and hope; now, if your 
Excellency can believe my words and trust me as 
worthy of so great a joy, a daughter will be given to 
me who has not hoped for love for twenty years ; who 
thought to go down to the grave unknown and unwept.^’ 


THE END, WHICH CAN BE BEAD 


187 


The pause which followed this avowal was painful 
in its silence and suspense. 

Wang Da Ren regarded Li intently for a full minute 
before replying. 

^^This is a strange story you tell us, Mr. Secretary. 
It is not impossible. Yet the annals of the Three 
Kingdoms hardly contain a more romantic one. But 
it is no light thing to give the keeping of a girl over to a 
stranger on his own word of this kind. How had your 
brother received word of the death of your wife, yet 
knowing nothing of the child she left? What has be- 
come of him and of the property rightfully belonging 
to you and this girl, if she indeed be your own?^’ 

“Your Excellency's words are true. But your 
servant has no knowledge of the whereabouts of that 
brother. Word came to me at one time that he had 
sold the property and disappeared, and no word has 
come since. If he is living I know not.’^ 

There was a stir in the crowd which seemed to center 
among the constables and prisoners. Wu succeeded 
in crowding forward so as to attract the attention of 
the mayor and craved permission to speak. 

“Well,” exclaimed the latter, “what do you want? 
Are you the lost brother? We might as well have all 
the wonders at once.” 

“No, your Excellency, but if command might be 
given to stop that disciple of Buddha who is trying to 
get out yonder we may find some trace of him whom 
you seek.” 

This directed the attention of all to the priest, who 


188 


MEY WINO 


had been quietly edging his way to the rear, hoping 
to escape unobserved. The constables at once led 
him back, pale but composed, to where Li, or Ang, as 
he now claimed to be named, stood. 

^‘Now tell us quickly why you push your words into 
the matter, said the mayor sharply to Wu. 

Wu was about to answer, when a soldier struck him 
sharply with his staff, saying, Kneel to the great man, 
fellow.^’ And on his knees he spoke : 

^‘Your Excellency, I know I am unworthy your 
notice and have done great wrong. I humbly crave 
grace and mercy. And in part reparation I may be 
allowed to assist a little in exposing the evil-doer in 
this matter. Your servant has heard part of this 
story before, but not clearly. Ang Sz I, the elder 
brother of this man, did not cease his evil course when 
he deceived his brother and defrauded the little one. 
The time came when it was convenient for him to dis- 
appear, and he became a neophyte, with no name. 
That neophyte has in time become a priest of much 
sanctity, and stands before you to-day.’^ 

The recognition between Li and the priest, meeting 
thus for the first time in twenty years, was complete, 
and there could be no denial or evasion. 

The chain of evidence was complete. But there was 
no opportunity given for greetings between them, if 
any had been desired then, for Wang Da Ren, stepping 
down from the platform, faced the younger brother and 
said : 

Truly we have had wonders enough for one day, and 


THE END, WHICH CAN BE READ 


189 


this hall has become a place of confession instead of a 
court of judgment. But there is one more step to be 
added to make the story complete that is for me to 
tell, although I marvel you have not thought of it be- 
fore. Ang Ru I, follow my words and answer me if I 
speak truly. The father of her whom you took to be 
your wife was named Fan Lien Fuh, was he not? Did 
your wife tell you of an elder brother named Jao So, 
of whom she thought much?’^ 

An exclamation from Mey Wing’s mother caused 
him to turn to her with the question : 

'^What is it, woman? Does that name mean any- 
thing to you?” 

^‘Yes, your Excellency,” she answered, trembling, 
^^ Wang Jao So was the name of her elder brother, kept 
by my husband for many years.” 

^^This, then, is another certain proof of her identity,” 
said the mayor with emotion. ^^Her mother was my 
mother first. Some years after my father died Fan 
Lien Fuh became the husband of our mother and their 
baby-girl became my pet and playmate. But before 
she became engaged to this man I had left home and 
did not see her again. Nor did I ever know him. 
When she disappeared I sought for her, and sent mes- 
sengers to the home of her husband, who learned noth- 
ing. Now I know why.” And the look he cast on the 
priest was an intimation that retribution would not 
long be delayed. ^^The place of my playmate and 
sister has never been filled in my heart. In this 
maiden she lives again. Do you think, my daughter, 


190 


MEY WING 


you would be willing to take that place and brighten 
the life of a man who has no daughters of his own, and 
who loved your mother?’^ 

Mey Wing’s heart went out to him. She was full 
of gratitude to him for his kindness, and he was a living 
link binding her to the gentle mother whose existence 
had been revealed to her that day. But even more 
strongly did her sympathy draw her to the lonely man 
whom his own weaknesses and unhappy circumstances 
had bound to so joyless a life, but who had of late 
proved his manliness and talent. While she hesitated, 
her grateful and appealing eyes wandered from one to 
the other. Her father’s heart swelled as he felt her 
sympathy, but he made no sign. The uncle saw the 
struggle, and said : 

‘‘1 see! The heart of the daughter seeks unto the 
father. And it is right.” 

Tears sprang to Mey Wing’s eyes as she fell to her 
knees by his side, saying : 

sir, forgive me. I am grateful for your kind- 
ness.” 

^^Nay, child,” he responded, his hand resting on her 
head, ^‘do not grieve. If your heart is true as was your 
mother’s, you can love us both.” And he raised her to 
her foster-mother’s side. 

Then, turning to where the foreigners sat, eager 
spectators of all that had transpired, he said : 

^‘1 think we will have to call on my learned friend, 
the doctor, to advise us in this matter. What shall we 
do with this little one, of whom we did not know this 


THE END, WHICH CAN BE READ 


191 


morning and who now fills so much space in our 
hearts 

The doctor stepped forward with a suspicion of red- 
ness under his shaggy eyebrows, but a merry twinkle 
withal shining out. 

too, might put in a claim,’’ he said, ^Tor I have 
long loved this maiden. And I think she is not un- 
grateful. And the Lady who has taught her and this 
good woman who has been so loving a mother to her, 
they would find it hard to give her up. But youth and 
middle age think not alike. Violets nod to daisies in 
the springtime. Since I have been appealed to, allow 
me to suggest another claimant.” And his eye sought 
out Chao Ju, while Mey Wing’s face flamed with tell- 
tale signs. The doctor led the young man before the 
two older men. 

^^Will you give her to him?” 

And they said, We will,” and San Dsi and the foster- 
mother and the lady said, ^4t is well.” 


THE END 
















One copy del. to Cat. Div. 





